
Class _ 

Book. 

GpightN?_ 



.-- i. 

) n 

_i : 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/introductiontoph01ladd 



PROFESSOR LADD'S WORKS. 



INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. An Inquiry 
after a Progressive Rational System of the Principles of the 
Particular Sciences in their Relation to Ultimate Reality, 
i vol., 8vo, $3.00. 

ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

A Treatise of the Activities and Nature of the Mind, from 
the Physical and Experimental Point of View. With nu- 
merous illustrations. $4.50. 

WHAT IS THE BIBLE? An Inquiry of the Origin and 
Nature of the Old and New Testaments in the Light of 
Modern Biblical Study. i2mo. $2.00. 

THE DOCTRINE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE. A 

Critical, Historical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into the Origin 
and Nature of the Old and New Testaments. 2 vols., 
8vo, $7.00. 

THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH POLITY. Crown 

8vo, $2.50. 






INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY 



TlauTss dudpwTrot rod elSevai opiywvrai (pvcrei. — ARISTOTLE. 

Tutti gli uomini naturalmente desiderano di sapere. — Dante. 

The kind of philosophy which one chooses depends on the kind of man 
one is. For a philosophical system is not a dead bit of furniture which 
one can take to one's self or dispose of, as one pleases ; but it is endowed 
with a soul by the soul of the man who has it. — Fichte. 



Introduction to Philosophy 



AN INQUIRY 



AFTER 

A RATIONAL SYSTEM OF SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES 

IN 

THEIR RELATION TO ULTIMATE REALITY 



BY 

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY 




- PYRI. 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1890 



<d 






Copyright, 1890, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 



23mtattg Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



PREFACE 



IT is not easy to describe the precise purpose of this book in 
the few words of an appropriate title. I have, indeed, 
cherished the hope that it may serve to " introduce " some of 
its readers to the study of philosophy. Undoubtedly the num- 
ber is increasingly large who recognize, if only vaguely, the 
existence of " those riddles " — as said Lotze — " by which our 
mind is oppressed in life, and about which we are compelled to 
hold some view or other, in order to be able really to live at all." 
It is these riddles which form the subjects of philosophical in- 
vestigation. Among the persons who at least recognize their 
existence are the young in the later years of our higher in- 
stitutions of learning. I have therefore had them in mind in 
writing this treatise. 

I have not thought it desirable, however, to put my thoughts 
into the technical form of a book of instruction for beginners in 
philosophy. In a subject that deals so largely with problems 
inviting to reflection and ending, at best, in opinion, there seems 
to me something unbecoming and even repulsive in the text- 
book form. Yet I believe that the skilful teacher of philo- 
sophy will find this book helpful in bringing its problems, 
and their discussion from whatever point of view, before his 
classes. 



yiii PREFACE. 

But there are many besides the students in our colleges and 
seminaries who thoughtfully raise and earnestly pursue the 
philosophical inquiries. To them, too, I would gladly speak 
a word of sympathy and cheer, and (if possible) hold out a 
helping hand. Of no other pursuit is it so true as of philosophy, 
that it has no " royal road." The profoundest reflections of the 
mightiest intellects and the daily musings and self-question- 
ings of the plainest men and women have all the fundamental 
things in common here. Freedom and caution, earnestness and 
modesty, are alike becoming in all. No costly laboratory, no 
expensive apparatus, no tiresome journeys of exploration, are 
indispensable in the pursuit of philosophy. 

This book is therefore addressed to the laity, at large, as well 
as to those who are in processes of education. Though much 
of its language is somewhat foreign to that of common life, 
the subjects of which it treats are those which lie upon the 
minds and hearts of all the thoughtful. If to such any of my 
thoughts can be an introduction, or a vade-mecum, in reflection, 
my purposes will thus be the more completely attained. 

Though this book is called an " Introduction," no special 
pains have been taken to simplify or popularize its treatment. 
For those accustomed to think in the lines it follows, its views 
will, I hope, always be found clearly and candidly expressed. 
It is not to be expected that these views will all find accept- 
ance with those most competent to judge. For beginners in 
philosophy some expressions will doubtless seem obscure, or 
hard to be understood. But, then, reflection is the indispen- 
sable method of philosophy ; and he who does not learn to 
reflect over the meanings which the words employed in phil- 
osophical writings bear, cannot hope to make progress in 
philosophical study. For if, when entering upon this study, 
the plain and thoughtful man needs no special equipment 



PEEFACE. ix 

besides his own powers of reflection, the keenest and most 
showily educated mind cannot dispense with reflection. 

Finally, the expert readers — if such the book should find — 
will not be long in discovering that the so-called " Introduc- 
tion " is by no means a perfectly colorless affair. Doubtless a 
system of philosophy (or at least the sketch and protocol of 
such a system) lies concealed in these pages. If the subject 
were urged to the point of a confession, it would appear that 
the author has views of his own to which he wishes to intro- 
duce his readers. These views are to a certain large extent 
positive as well as critical. The attempt has been made, how- 
ever, to prevent their expression in a form unreasonably and 
offensively dogmatic. Whether they are sound and defensible, 
each reader must, on due consideration, judge for himself. 
But a " system of philosophy " has only been suggested and 
sketched. The expansion and more detailed discussion of its 
separate departments by the same hand must abide their time. 

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD. 

Yale University, July, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page 

Introductory : History and Definition of the Term 
"Philosophy" 1-28 



CHAPTER II. 

The Sources of Philosophy, and its Problem . . . 29-54 

CHAPTER III. 

Relation of Philosophy to the Particular Sciences . 55-83 

CHAPTER IV. 

PSYCHOLOGf AND PHILOSOPHY „ . 84-111 

CHAPTER V. 

The Spirit and the Method of Philosophy . . . . 112-139 

CHAPTER VI. 

Dogmatism, Scepticism, and Criticism ....... 140-162 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Divisions of Philosophy 163-177 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Theory of Knowledge 178-217 



xii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Page 

Metaphysics 218-253 

CHAPTER X. 

Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Mind. . . 254-287 

CHAPTER XI. 
Ethics 288-323 

CHAPTER XII. 

^Esthetics . . . . 324-350 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Philosophy of Religion 351-394 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Tendencies and Schools in Philosophy 395-421 

Index 423-426 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

HISTORY AND DEFINITION OF THE TERM "PHILOSOPHY." 

THE inquiry, "What is philosophy?" cannot be answered 
by a direct appeal to history. This is true, whether 
the appeal be taken to a widespreading and confessedly un- 
scientific usage, or to the conceptions and terminology of au- 
thorities in philosophy. Popular expression has much misused 
the word; it has thus tended in no small degree to produce 
distrust toward the particular discipline which the word repre- 
sents. But the writers of philosophical masterpieces have by 
no means been at agreement on this point. This, too, is one 
reason for the unfavorable attitude of many cultivated per- 
sons toward the pursuit of "metaphysics," technically so called. 
Men eminent in science, literature, or education are accus- 
tomed to identify philosophy with metaphysics ; and by the 
latter term they understand the sum-total of unverifiable onto- 
logical speculations. 

If the fullest reasonable allowance be made for the grounds 
upon which the foregoing misapprehensions are based, a claim 
to honorable mention can still be made for philosophy, and also 
a claim to recognition for philosophical study. Nay, more ; 
we should not despair of showing that this "mother of the 
sciences " has been scarcely inferior to any other factor in the 
elevation, ameliorating, and enrichment of the life of literature 

l 



2 INTRODUCTORY. 

and of conduct. But even the beginnings of such an apologetic 
argument must be for the present postponed. It will be a more 
economical course, first of all, to clear from obscurity the 
conception of philosophy, and to show how the study of 
philosophy may be most successfully pursued. 

It need not be argued in detail that the exact and com- 
prehensive definition of any form of science or of intellectual 
discipline is no easy task. Life and reality nowhere draw for 
us perfectly distinct lines. Even the physical and natural sci- 
ences find great difficulty in separating their peculiar spheres, 
and in limiting their particular ends and objects of pursuit 
within those spheres. Here lies at least one reason why, if we 
I are to believe Mr. Herbert Spencer, " the sciences cannot be 
rationally arranged in serial order." In fact, the experts of the 
" exact sciences " are still at disagreement over important points 
relating to this matter. Meanwhile, the world of scholars is 
inquiring whether clearer conceptions of such forms of knowl- 
edge as logic and psychology are not possible. A recent writer 1 
on the latter of the two has maintained that " psychology 
cannot be defined at all by reference to a special subject-matter, 
as can mineralogy and botany." 

Philosophy, then, is not necessarily at a great relative disad- 
vantage, if it cannot appeal to common consent in limiting its 
own domain. Satisfactory definition is one of the latest and 
finest achievements in the pursuit of any science. Nor is it 
likely that finished and faultless definition will be reached 
until human knowledge is itself finished and faultless. 

It is not our intention, however, to deny that somewhat 
peculiar difficulties surround the attempt to formulate a pre- 
cise conception of the nature of philosophy. Nor do we fear 
the further confession that the reason for these difficulties is in 
part the fault of philosophers themselves. For the reason is 
only partly due to them ; it is also partly due to the nature of 
the subject. If we speak of philosophy as a " science " at all, 

1 Dr. Ward in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed.) ; art. Psychology. 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 3 

it can only be to lay emphasis upon a correct method for its 
study, and a certain ideal certainty aimed at in its conclusions. 
It will be one result of our inquiry to show that philosophy 
should not be identified with any form of positive science. 

The difficulty of fixing upon an independent domain for phi- 
losophy is increased by the recent vigorous growth and wonder- 
ful diversifying of the particular sciences. Familiar changes in 
the use of terms illustrate this truth. Intelligent persons are 
no longer inclined to speak of physics as " natural philosophy ; " 
and yet this term has a legitimate birthright. For the specu- 
lative thought in whose line of succession we are standing 
to-day, had its rise in crude theories as to the ultimate constit- 
uents of the physical universe. Some, with Thales, said that 
all things arose from and consist of water; and some, with 
Anaximander, that the beginning of all things (apxv) was the 
unlimited (d-rreipov), — that is, " the infinite mass of matter, out 
of which all things arise." Still others said the ultimate physi- 
cal principle is air, or " eternally living fire." Others sought a 
formal or quasi-spiritual " First ; " and this they found in num- 
ber, through which the totality of things becomes a cosmos, — 
an orderly and beautiful whole ; or in One Divine Being, " all 
eye, all ear, all thought ; " or in Mind, " itself mixed with noth- 
ing," but acting on matter considered as an inert and compound, 
but as yet undifferentiated, mass. 

It is to physics rather than to metaphysics that inquirers 
appeal in these days for a speculative solution of questions like 
the foregoing. But it is nevertheless true that any solution of 
such questions must always be mingled largely with the pre- 
vailing metaphysics. The fact that we assign their discussion 
to science rather than to philosophy, illustrates the modern ten- 
dency to narrow the sphere hitherto occupied by philosophy. 

What is true of physics is even yet more true of psychology, 
as inclusive of both logic and ethics. For this science the com- 
plex states of consciousness constitute the problems to be solved. 
In dealing with these problems psychology presses hard upon 






4 INTRODUCTORY. 

philosophy for the right to what the latter formerly consid- 
ered its peculiar domain. The descriptive and evolutionary 
science of mind claims the power to explain the genesis of con- 
ceptions of real Being and eternal Truth. The ultimate and 
fundamental forms of thought and belief {semina scientice, 
semina ceternitatis) are thus brought into the burning focus 
of the idea of development. In this focus the hitherto stable 
forms of all Thought and Keality lose their life. Not only 
Space and Time, but also the ethical and aesthetical Ideals, 
and even the categories of Thought, are thus apparently reduced 
to a condition of perpetual change. 

With Plato, philosophy moved in the sphere of the Idea. The 
Platonic Idea (ISea or etSo?) was " a pure archetypal essence, in 
which those things that are together subsumed under the same 
concept participate." Both aesthetically and ethically, it was 
the perfect in its kind ; to it every individual reality remained 
far and forever inferior. Of all the ideas, the highest (for they 
were a kingdom) was the Idea of the Good. This Idea is the 
real cause of all Being and Knowledge, as the sun in the king- 
dom of ideas. In this sphere of lofty intuitions of supersen- 
sible realities did divine philosophy, according to Plato, have 
its movement and life. But as astronomy with the telescope 
has banished from the heavens the fixed and musical spheres 
of the planets, so have psychology and anthropology apparently 
banished the sphere of the Platonic ideas. 

The very conception which Aristotle held of philosophy was 
unfavorable to the claim for it of a domain distinct from the 
particular sciences. Psychology and logic recognize in this 
great Greek their first progenitor. But they treat the Aristo- 
telian categories, and the four principles of his " First Philos- 
ophy," — questions set apart by him for metaphysics, — as 
subjects falling within their scientific domain. 

Through the Middle Age", and even into modern times, it was 
theology which was most closely allied with philosophy. Dur- 
ing this period the latter was understood to be ancillary to the 






DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 5 

former, or rather to the reigning dogmas of the Church. In 
theory and appearance, theology dominated philosophy. In re- 
ality, philosophy controlled and guided theology ; and, finally, 
having gained her own freedom, undertook the task of freeing 
her former mistress from the principle of traditional authority. 
In the general movement of enlarging and diversifying human 
knowledge, a so-called " science of religion " has arisen. Theo- 
logy, too, has at length tardily and feebly felt the modern im- 
pulse. It has even claimed to be the "science of sciences." 
How much more of the sphere once recognized as belonging to 
philosophy is not in this way forever consigned to the particular^ 
sciences ? 

But is it not the peculiar and indefeasible right of philosophy 
to transact business with the Absolute ? In the construction 
and defence of this Idea, and in the deduction from it of the 
forms and laws of all reality, may not philosophy find its legiti- 
mate work ? But certain of the particular sciences refuse to 
surrender even this barren right to philosophy. Psychology 
attempts to bring the very conception of the Absolute into this 
same focus of analysis. The conception is pronounced negative, 
a mere abstraction, with no correlate in reality. The deductive 
process, by which philosophy once sought to pass from this 
Idea to the world of concrete realities with which science deals, 
is shown to have the appearance and not the substance of an 
argument. Ethics, politics, art, and religion pursue their way, 
regardless of the once proud philosophy of the Absolute. To 
it is left only those pale ghosts of conceptions that belong to 
the death-kingdom of abstract thought. 

" Philosophy," says Lotze, " is a mother wounded by the in- 
gratitude of her own children." It is not the ingratitude, how- 
ever, of denying their maternal origin which wounds her most 
deeply. The history of the particular sciences, even more than 
the history of philosophy, shows how much they owe to the 
philosophic impulse and the philosophic reflection of the race. 
A wound not only deep but deadly would be inflicted, however, 



6 INTRODUCTORY. 

if these sciences should quite deprive philosophy of her rightful 
domain. Yet, after granting all their claims, what is left out of 
which to constitute this domain ? 

The conception of philosophy, like the conception of science, 
implies a living historical development. We cannot wholly 
intrust to Plato and Aristotle the guidance of our minds into 
the precise and comprehensive idea we are seeking. But in the 
search we cannot safely overlook the thoughts of these ancient 
masters in philosophy. Kant, too, as the first who attempted 
to mark with precision the boundaries between philosophy and 
the positive sciences, is entitled to great consideration ; and yet 
we cannot uncritically receive the definition of even so pro- 
found a thinker. 

The true method of defining the nature of philosophy is there- 
fore perfectly plain. We must consult the history of philosophy 
and learn the views of its great teachers ; but we must main- 
tain the freedom of criticism in our consultation of history. 
As children of all the ages, we receive with docility the instruc- 
tions of the past. As children especially of this age, we must 
recognize our own right to the effort for an independent point 
of view. This method will be applied in two ways. A brief 
sketch of the history of the term " philosophy " will serve to 
indicate what are the important and permanent factors in the 
conception of philosophy. A more detailed criticism of the 
principal forms of definition (particularly in the modern era) 
will then enable us so to combine these factors as to reach 
the true and comprehensive definition. 

The word " philosophy " 1 and its kindred terms do not occur 
in Homer or Hesiod. Herodotus (i. 30) represents Croesus as 

1 Further information may be found in the following, among other works : 
TJeberweg, "A History of Philosophy," and an Article in the " Zeitschrift fur 
Philosophic u. philosoph. Kritik," New Series, vol. xlii., 1863, pp. 185-199 ; Striim- 
pell, " Einleitung in die Philosophic vom Standpunkte d. Geschichte d. Philoso- 
phic;" Article by R. Haym, in Ersch und Gruber's " Encycl. d. Wissen. u. 
Kiinste," hi. 24; Lichtenfels, "Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in d. Philosophic;" 
Stuckenberg, " Introduction to the Study of Philosophy." 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 7 

saying to Solon : " I have heard that thou hast travelled, philoso- 
phizing, over many lands." Thucydides makes Pericles use the 
term "to philosophize" in the Funeral Oration (ii. 40), as a 
striving after intellectual and scientific culture. A statement, 
probably mythical, concerning the remote and shadowy person- 
ality of Pythagoras, refers to him as the first to designate 
philosophy by the term "science." The thought ascribed to 
Socrates is well known. In the Platonic Apology (28 E) he 
calls by the term " philosophizing " that examination of him- 
self and others by which he aimed to destroy the Sophistical 
conceit of wisdom ; in this he saw the mission of his life. It 
is with the disciples of Socrates that the term " philosophy " 
appears with a technical significance. Xenophon refers (Memo- 
rabil., I. ii. 31) to certain men who made a business (consti- 
tuting, perhaps, a school) of "philosophizing." 

It is Plato, however, who is the first even to attempt to de- 
scribe, under the term " philosophy," a definite method and 
domain of human knowledge, and to give to it by his own 
labors a comprehensive and systematic treatment. Yet Plato 
vacillates in his definition, nor does he in practice remain true 
to any one conception of the subject. In several places 1 he 
expresses the belief — falsely ascribed to Pythagoras, but prob- 
ably taught by Socrates — that wisdom belongs to God alone ; 
while it belongs to man to be rather a lover of wisdom. This 
wisdom (cro(f>ia) is identical with true knowledge 2 {kiricnr)^, 
or — as we should say — with science) ; philosophy is the 
acquisition of such knowledge. 3 It has to do, not with the 
sensuous, but with the ideal ; and, accordingly, with the eternal 
and immutably real. Philosophers are worthy, then, to be 
spoken of as those who " set their affections, in each case, on 
the really existent ; " 4 or as those who " are able to appre- 
hend that which is always self-identical and immutable." 5 

1 Phsedr., 278 d ; Symp., 203 e ; Lysis, 218 a (ed. Steph.). 

2 Theffitet., 145 e. 3 Euthyd., 288 d. 
4 Rep., v. 480. 5 Rep., vi. 484 b. 



8 INTRODUCTORY. 

Elsewhere 1 he speaks of philosophy so as to include under 
it certain branches of knowledge which we should to-day 
assign to the particular sciences, — he thus speaks, at least, 
of "geometry and certain other philosophy." 

Philosophy has its spring, according to Plato, in a deep and 
passionate impulse of human nature. Its root is Eras, — the 
effort of mortal man to attain the immortal. To reach its proper 
aim it must pass from what is sensuous to what is intellectual, 
from the individual to the universal, — to the intuition and 
understanding of the Idea. 2 Thus philosophy is the elevation of 
the entire man out of the senses ; it includes all real and valu- 
able knowledge, as well as the pursuit of knowledge in the 
correct manner. It also secures the fulfilment of moral duties. 
All other education or culture is merely a preparation for 
philosophy. 3 

These expressions of Plato are sufficiently vague and shifting ; 
yet they clearly suggest all four of the most important factors 
in the true conception of philosophy. Two of them, at least, are 
to be distinguished even previous to the Platonic writings. One 
of these is the recognition of the profound and noble impulse 
from which springs the movement of philosophical thought. 
The truth is indeed expressed by Plato in figures of speech, but 
it is unmistakably expressed. What is only sensuous as an 
object, and uncertain opinion as a method, does not satisfy the 
rational nature of man. He longs, sometimes with the en- 
thusiasm of the lover for his mistress, for communion with 
the Ideas, — with the eternal verity and real Being which 
they are. 

The world has grown old since Plato's time, and some would 
have us believe that the passionate but rational impulse to 
which he appealed has become obsolete. But the philosophic 
impulse still exists, as vigorous and effective as ever, for its 
seat is the rational human soul ; and until it fails, philosophy 

1 Thesetet., 143 d. 2 Symp., 211 d ; Phfedr., 246-256. 

8 Rep., vii. 514-521 c ; 540 a and b. 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 9 

will not fail to have its devotees and to fulfil its mission in the 
evolution of mind. Unlike any of the particular sciences, it is 
of the very nature of philosophy to exist with man. If there 
were no shells, there would be no science of conchology ; if 
there were no insects, no entomology ; if there were no precious 
metals, the science of political economy would undergo a great 
change. But wherever finite reason is, there philosophy as 
a pursuit and discipline must arise, and run a course of 
development. 

Another factor made prominent by Plato in his inchoate 
conception may be thus stated: Philosophy is a special and 
peculiarly certain knowledge of reality. Whatever in each case 
is the really existent, upon that is the affection of the philoso- 
pher set. Whatever is eternal and immutable, this constitutes 
the object which he strives to grasp and hold. The most hardy 
Eealist of the present age does not venture to re-establish, in 
their ancient Platonic form, the kingdom of Ideas. And not a 
few students of the particular sciences would have us believe 
that to-day, at least, knowledge can flourish and justify itself at 
the bar of Eeason without reference to metaphysical reality. It 
cannot be denied that these sciences may be successfully pur- 
sued without bringing to the front the problems with which 
philosophy deals. Yet each of the greater divisions of sci- 
ence will always have its own peculiar metaphysical assump- 
tions ; and the thought that somehow philosophy includes the 
search after, and the certification of, a higher and more compre- 
hensive Eeality, still furnishes an essential factor in the defini- 
tion of philosophy. This factor certainly entered into the 
Platonic conception. 

Another noteworthy element in Plato's definition of philoso- 
phy is emphasized whenever he brings this discipline into rela- 
tion with character and with the life of conduct. The wisdom 
in which it consists is not, indeed, primarily and chiefly a matter 
of character and conduct. Plato identifies it (o-o<f)la) with 
true and certain knowledge {iirta-rrjfi'ri), rather than with dis- 



10 INTRODUCTORY. 

position or sound judgment in practical affairs (o-axfrpoavvr)'). 1 
Later we come upon the definition of Cicero, which identifies it 
with that wisdom which is a knowledge of human and divine 
affairs. 2 And yet with Plato neither the method nor the con- 
clusions of philosophy can be separated from practical life. For 
its successful pursuit a right disposition is indispensable ; when 
successfully pursued, it is a chief and only effectual means of 
cultivating a right disposition. To philosophic insight Plato, 
especially in all his earlier writings, refers the whole round of 
human virtues. This close connection between philosophical 
inquiry and the life of character and conduct remains, in spite 
of all impressions to the contrary, until the present time. It 
will always endure ; for it belongs to the very nature of phi- 
losophy, as issuing from its sources in the soul of man. 

The fourth factor in the conception of philosophy, implicitly 
but insufficiently recognized by Plato, is its dependence upon 
the particular sciences. Between them and it he does not 
clearly distinguish; and, indeed, this distinction was not clearly 
made by any writer until centuries after the time of Plato. 
But the double sense in which the Greek master and his 
followers employ the word, recognizes both the fact of a dis- 
tinction and the fact of the reciprocal dependence of these 
two forms of knowledge. 

With Aristotle philosophy (<$>ikocro$[a, and sometimes arofyia) 
was identified with science in general ; in its most comprehen- 
sive meaning it included things so diverse as mathematics and 
physics, ethics and politics. 3 The "philosophies," or philosophi- 
cal sciences, of mathematics, physics, and theology, were called 
theoretical. 4 But these sciences were, after all, not placed 
upon precisely the same footing with philosophy proper, in 
the thought and definitions of this writer. There is a " First 

1 Comp. Lichtenfels, Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in die Philosophie, p. 6 f. 

2 Philosophia est studium sapientise ; sapientia vera est scientia rerum huma- 
narum atque divinarum. 

8 Metaph., v. 1 1026 a. 

4 Metaph., ibid. ; eomp. Ethic. Nicomach., i. 4 1096 b 31. 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 11 

Philosophy" (irpcoTr] <pikoao^>ia), and the knowledge of this 
is the distinguishing pursuit of the philosopher. 1 This pre- 
eminently philosophical science is the systematic and critical 
knowledge of the most general and fundamental principles of 
Being, — the science of Being, as such (to bv y 6v), and not 
of any particular kind or department of existences. 2 In brief, 
it is what many would now call " metaphysics," or " ontology." 
In contrast with this, the special sciences are to be considered 
only partial. 

It is obvious that two of the four important factors of the 
Platonic conception have been made more prominent in the 
definitions of Aristotle. Philosophy has especially to do with 
the fundamental principles of all Eeality ; its object of search 
is more general than that of any of the particular sciences, 
not even excepting theology. As compared with any of these 
sciences, it is universal, first, pre-eminent. It therefore involves 
some special knowledge of the really true and the really exis- 
tent. As Paulsen says: "Aristotle indeed thinks he philoso- 
phizes when he investigates the natural history of animals, or 
household economy ; " but Aristotle does not consider such 
investigation as constituting philosophy in the highest and 
peculiar meaning of the term. 

And yet — so the vacillation of the great Greek in his two- 
fold use of the term seems to say — philosophy and the par- 
ticular sciences are intimately interdependent. Moreover, as 
to subject-matter they must cover a common ground; for 
Aristotle admits no real kingdom of an ideal order existing 
apart from the individual and concrete realities with which 
the particular sciences deal. Philosophy must also follow 
scientific method ; it must be systematic, comprehensive, and 
yet kept constantly in touch with concrete realities. 

After Aristotle, until comparatively recent times, little or 
no advance was made in the definition of philosophy. The 

i Metaph., v. 1, 1026 a 24 and 30 ; iii. 3, 1005 a 21. 
2 Ibid., v. 1, 1026 a 31; comp. x. 3 1060 b 31. 



12 INTRODUCTORY. 

movement of thought was in this regard rather retrograde. 
The boundary which Plato began to draw when he distin- 
guished the doctrine of the Ideas from other forms of knowl- 
edge, and which Aristotle made clearer when he distinguished 
"first philosophy" from the other philosophies and sciences, 
was again obscured by the Stoics. By philosophy they under- 
stood all forms of theoretical knowledge, together with its 
relations to conduct and to practical morality. The Epi- 
cureans also emphasized this aspect and application of phi- 
losophy, to the exclusion of other factors in its conception. 
With Seneca philosophy is the "love of wisdom" (sapientice 
amor), or the " zealous pursuit of virtue " (stadium virtutis) 
through virtue itself. 1 Epicurus himself is said to have iden- 
tified philosophy with "the rational pursuit of happiness." 2 
Still later, under the Neo-Platonists, the name became sy- 
nonymous with the esoteric wisdom of sacred myth and the- 
ological poetry. Under early Christianity the monks came 
to be called philosophers, and the doctrines of the Church 
a philosophy. 

The indefiniteness of the term among the Greeks and their 
somewhat degenerate successors shows — as says Zeller — that 
the thing itself had scarcely yet appeared as " a specific form 
of intellectual life." It must be remembered, however, that 
this lack of definiteness was chiefly due to a failure to dis- 
tinguish philosophy from the particular sciences. But the 
conception of " science " also was never clearly formed in the 
Greek mind. It was indeed rather foreign to their stage of 
intellectual development. So true is this, that during all the 
Greek period the conception of philosophy, as respects com- 
prehensiveness and accuracy, was rather in advance of the 
conception of science. Aristotle was, indeed, a real founder 
of logic, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics ; but it was only 
in the Alexandrian period that some of the other particular 

1 Epist., 89, 3 and 7. 

2 Sext. Empir. Adv. Math., xi. 169. 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 13 

sciences attained to the dignity of an independent cultiva- 
tion, 1 Previously they had all been included in the vague term 
philosophy. It was centuries after this period, however, before 
the conception of science was developed. 

It would be of little service to our purpose to trace in 
detail the history of the term " philosophy " from the post- Aris- 
totelian period down to the time of Kant. The Schoolmen 
did little more than repeat what had been said by Plato and 
Aristotle. Descartes and his followers, so far as they make 
any attempt at definition, do not escape the confusion in- 
volved in cultivating, not only psychology, but also physics 
and biology, under the term " philosophy." The three principal 
works of Descartes himself are a mixture of considerations 
which would now be ascribed to the theory of knowledge, 
to theology, and to physics. Spinoza's works made an influ- 
ential contribution to the speculative treatment of the highest 
philosophical themes ; but their author does nothing to dis- 
tinguish philosophy from the particular sciences. The belief, 
which was fundamental with Leibnitz, compelled him every- 
where to unite the theological with the mechanical view of 
the universe. Philosophy is therefore the result of a specu- 
lative union of two corresponding sets of ideas ; but its nature 
and scope are nowhere clearly defined. The school of Leib- 
nitz as a distinct development culminated with the writings 
of Christian Wolff. This philosopher advocates a conception 
of philosophy wider, but less definite and satisfactory, than 
that of Aristotle. It is " such knowledge of those things that 
are, or happen, as enables us to understand why they are or 
happen ; " or it is " the knowledge of things possible, in as 
far as they are possible." 2 

By Locke, and most of the writers in England who sprung 
from the movement he originated, psychology and the theory 
of knowledge were identified with philosophy. The aim of 

1 See Zeller, Pre-Socratic Philosophy, p. 6. 

2 Philos. Ration., Disc. Praelim., §§ 4, 6, and 29. 



14 INTRODUCTORY. 

his philosophical treatise, "Essay concerning Human Under- 
standing," he defines (i. 1, 2, and 3) as the inquiry " into the 
original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together 
with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent." 
But in the same treatise Locke also calls physics — that is, 
"the knowledge of things as they are in their own proper 
beings, their constitutions, properties, and operations " — by 
the term " natural philosophy." Elsewhere he pronounces 
philosophy nothing but the true knowledge of things. The 
followers of Newton and Bacon emphasized, not only specu- 
lative, but experimental, physics as philosophy pre-eminently. 
The former indeed uttered the warning, " Beware of meta- 
physics ; " but himself made large use of metaphysics, and 
did much to fix the subsequent vague use of the term phi- 
losophy by calling his great work "Philosophise Naturalis 
Principia Mathematica." Hobbes defines philosophy as the 
knowledge of effects or phenomena by their causes, and of 
causes from their observed effects, by means of legitimate in- 
ferences. Thus is philosophy again identified with the whole 
round of the sciences. In Hobbes's opinion philosophy has 
to do only with bodies, natural and political ; it therefore 
comprises only the two divisions corresponding to these terms. 
Yet a prima philosophia is in some sort recognized, which is 
nothing more than a mixture of definitions of the more fun- 
damental conceptions. 

Until the present time the same confusion of philosophy 
with the particular sciences — even with physics, but espe- 
cially with psychology — has prevailed among English writers. 
Only recently has much skilled effort been expended upon 
the necessary distinctions. In a note to his " Encyclopaedia," 
Hegel remarks upon the use of the word in England in his 
own time. "Among the advertisements of books just pub- 
lished," says he, "I lately found the following notice in an 
English newspaper : ' The Art of Preserving the Hair, on 
Philosophical Principles, neatly printed in post 8vo, price 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 15 

seven shillings.' " 1 Hegel adds the remark, — is it with pure 
sarcasm, or refreshing naivete ? — " By philosophical principles 
for preserving the hair are probably meant chemical or physio- 
logical principles." Surely, " thought, and not a mere combi- 
nation of wood, iron, etc., ought to be called the instrument 
of philosophy," says he, in commenting upon the practice of 
calling physical apparatus by the title "philosophical." But 
to-day England abounds in books, pamphlets, journals, on 
special topics in experimental physics, that bear the same 
inappropriate title, — not to speak of uncouth and newfangled 
toys. 

Nor has this country been free from a confusion of thought 
scarcely less great than that which has maintained itself in 
England. If the confusion be in any degree less, it is because 
the pursuit of both science and philosophy, and the institutions 
connected therewith, are more recent here. They have there- 
fore derived somewhat more benefit from the recent attempts, 
especially since the time of Kant in Germany, to distinguish 
between the two. 

The precise limitation of the province of philosophy was 
undertaken by Kant. In his remarks upon the "Architec- 
tonic of Pure Reason " this thinker defines the discipline 
which was his pursuit in life. 2 All knowledge, considered 
from the subjective point of view, is either historical or ra- 
tional : the former sets out from empirical data ; the latter 
from principles (cognitio ex principiis). Now, again, of this 
rational knowledge, one kind is based on concepts ; the other 
is based on the construction of concepts. The former alone 
is philosophical ; the latter is mathematical. Thus does Kant, 
with two strokes, mark out the domain of philosophy, as dis- 
tinguished from the empirical sciences on the one hand, and 
on the other from pure mathematics. The " system of all 

1 Encyclopiidie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, Heidelberg, 
1827, p. 11. 

2 Critique of Pure Reason, Miiller's Translation, ii. 714 f. 



16 INTRODUCTORY. 

philosophical knowledge " (i. e., knowledge starting from rational 
principles and based on concepts) is called " philosophy." So 
far the concept of philosophy is Scholastic, — " one of the 
many crafts intended for many objects." 

As related to the ends of reason, moral philosophy, which 
concerns itself with the whole destination of man, and aims 
at the perfect systematical unity of reason, stands highest. In 
its " cosmical " concept, as something that must be of interest 
to everybody, philosophy is " the science of the relation of all 
knowledge to the essential aims of human reason." 

As regards the objects of philosophy, it may be divided into 
two branches, — the philosophy of nature, which relates to all 
that is; the philosophy of morals, which relates to all that 
ought to be. As regards its method, it may be either pure or 
empirical. Pure philosophy is either critical, and "inquires 
into the faculties of reason with regard to all pure knowledge 
a priori ; " or it is metaphysic, and " comprehends in systemat- 
ical connection the whole of philosophical knowledge." Meta- 
physic is either speculative use of pure reason (the " metaphysic 
of nature ") ; or it is practical (the " metaphysic of morals "), 
and contains the principles which a priori determine and neces- 
sitate all doing and not doing. 

It is therefore obvious that Kant distinctly separates philoso- 
phy from all the positive sciences, including descriptive psy- 
chology, logic, and psychological ethics ; and that he identifies 
it with metaphysics, in the more extended use of the latter 
term. With Kant, criticism of reason is metaphysical, and 
metaphysics is but the enumeration and systematic arrange- 
ment of the conceptions which have already been sifted out 
of experience by the process of metaphysical critique. Both 
bis definitions and his practice introduce a new era in the con- 
ception of philosophy. This fact, however, is not due simply 
to his consistent attempt to establish some line of demarcation 
between philosophy and the particular sciences. It is also due 
to the prominence he gave to a new factor in the conception, 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 17 

and accordingly to a new division of philosophical discipline. 
With Kant philosophy becomes pre-eminently man's rational 
se//-knowledge. 

The new department of philosophy brought into prominence 
by Kant we may call "Theory of Knowledge" (Noetics, Episte- 
mology, Erkenntnisslehre, Wissenschaftslehre) ; it is the critical 
investigation of man's power to reach that which philosophy 
had, previously — as he thought — uncritically assumed to 
impart; namely, the certified cognition of reality. With 
him this critical investigation of reason, both as a process and 
as a summary of results, constitutes the very essence of philo- 
sophy. It is because of their involvement, as it were, in pure 
reason as Ideals that the great themes of God, Freedom, and 
Immortality are objects of philosophical investigation, by the 
critical method, in the Kantian system. 

With Kant the present era of philosophy began ; and with 
him was completed the entire round of attempts to survey the 
domain of philosophy. No other important factors in its con- 
ception remain to be introduced. As an object of pursuit it 
may be said to have attained to a clear self-consciousness. In- 
deed, the essential factors in the true conception have been, for 
centuries, at least obscurely indicated. But in the Kantian 
system they are distinctly recognized and expressed. 

The failure of the authorities of the last century to agree in 
their conception of the nature of philosophy has not, then, been 
chiefly due to ignorance. It has rather been due to bias from 
the existing philosophical systems. The philosophical tenets of 
each writer on philosophy have been too much made a part of 
his definition of philosophy. The very nature of philosophy 
— since it is held to be concerned, in some special manner, 
with ultimate Eeality — tends toward this result. But the 
answer to our inquiry, What is philosophy ? must not be made 
dependent upon our tenets concerning what the true philo- 
sophical system ought to be. 

The temptation to incorporate into one's definition of philos- 

2 



18 INTRODUCTORY. 

ophy one's conclusions as to the nature of the ultimate Eeality, 
and as to the possibility of knowledge of such Eeality, will 
always exist. These conclusions are the tenets on which the 
different schools of thinkers are divided. It is not strange, 
therefore, that these schools hold different conceptions as to 
the nature of philosophy. And yet we cannot think that the 
previous wide differences with respect to the domain common 
to all schools need continue to exist. What is required for a 
true definition is that it shall include all the permanent his- 
torical factors corresponding to the term " philosophy." In 
this way alone can we place our conception on objective and 
abiding grounds. 

The definitions of philosophy which have prevailed since the 
time of Kant may be divided into four classes. Each of these 
classes is inclined to place its own peculiar and exclusive em- 
phasis upon some one or two, only, of the factors necessary 
to the complete and true conception. 

One principal form of the modern conceptions of philosophy 
has continued to emphasize the factors rendered most promi- 
nent by Plato and Aristotle. This makes the essence of phi- 
losophy consist in the special and profound knowledge which it 
furnishes of the really Existent, of that Being which has reality 
indeed. Such knowledge may well seem to have a somewhat 
esoteric character; at any rate, it is pre-eminently rational 
knowledge. But all the objects of the particular sciences are 
also regarded — however uncritically — as concrete real exis- 
tences. If, then, philosophy is to be distinguished from these 
sciences, the Eeality with which it concerns itself must be in 
some way distinguished from those concrete realities with which 
the particular sciences are concerned. In Plato's thought, this 
Eeality — alone worthy the name — was regarded as the or- 
derly system of Ideas ; in the thought of Aristotle, philosophy 
was the science of the most fundamental forms of all being, 
■ — of Being as such. The corresponding modern conception of 
philosophy emphasizes especially its metaphysical content ; it 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 19 

even identifies philosophy with an ontological metaphysics. 
Philosophy, from this point of view, may be defined as the sys- 
tematic knowledge of supersensible reality, or of the supreme 
Keality. 

Under this same general conception of philosophy, several 
of the great systems and schools alike readily fall. Idealism, 
Eealism, and Dualism, disagree fundamentally in the conclu- 
sions they advocate respecting the nature of the Eeality which 
philosophy seeks ; but they may agree in defining the sphere of 
search. Matter, Force, " the Idea," Will, " the Unconscious," 
the " Absolute Ego," or Personal Absolute, " whom faith calls 
God," are identified by different systems with the One Eeality, 
supersensible and ultimate, which all alike seek. 

In his " Encyclopaedia " 1 Hegel, while denying that it is pos- 
sible "to give in a preliminary way a general conception of 
philosophy," defines it, with reference to his own system, as 
the " science of the Idea." Logic, which is Hegel's prima phi- 
losophia, is the "science of the Absolute Idea." Even in the 
philosophy of nature (of so-called material reality) nothing 
else is to be discerned except the " Idea ; " and all philosoph- 
ical discipline is to be conducted on the assumption that this 
Idea and all real Being is identical. For Eeason is the sub- 
stance of the universe, and the Absolute Idea is the identity 
of the theoretical and the practical. 2 

Schleiermacher, too, found the true sphere of philosophy in 
the idea of the highest unity of physical and ethical knowl- 
edge, — while demanding a realism that shall consider each 
finite thing as a manifestation of the eternal, and claiming that 
speculative thinking is reason's highest objective function. In 
the mind of this quickening thinker, philosophy is the specu- 
lative activity of human reason directed toward the transcendent 



1 Encyclopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, p. 25 : 
Wallace's Translation, The Logic of Hegel, p. 23. 

2 See Philosophy of History (Translation, London, 1884, pp. 9 f.), and Werke, 
(Berlin, 1841) : Logik, zweiter Theil, p. 317. 



20 INTRODUCTORY. 

"Ground" of all existences. 1 So does a modern exponent of 
his views define philosophy as that fundamental science whose 
form is pure reflective thinking, but whose content is the to- 
tality of being as related to its ultimate "Ground," — -to the 
Absolute. 

With essentially the same view of the nature of philosophy 
Trendelenburg defines it as the " science of the Idea ; " while 
another writer (Lichtenfels) would start the discussion of its 
nature with the distinction between the supersensible and the 
sensuously real, and thus make philosophy the rational knowl- 
edge of supersensible Eeality. "Philosophy," says Schmid, 
" is the rational science of reality." What is philosophy ? It 
is, says yet another writer, " the science of the supreme and 
most important realities." 

Schopenhauer and Hartmann also, although differing funda- 
mentally from the authorities just quoted, in respect to their 
solution of the great problems of philosophy, virtually agree 
with them in identifying it with ontological metaphysics. The 
question which the former aims, by his entire system, to answer, 
may be stated thus : What, besides idea, is the World ? Scho- 
penhauer's answer to the question is : The World is also " thing- 
in-itself," a supersensible and superintelligible reality ; and, 
as such, it is Will. In its positive and constructive part, the 
entire philosophical system of Hartmann is identical with the 
"metaphysics of the Unconscious," — namely, of the ultimate 
and supreme Eeality, which is Will and Idea. 

This conception of philosophy, however, is apt to be defec- 
tive in certain important particulars ; and these are the partic- 
ulars most emphasized by definitions of the other three classes. 
Especially does it fail to consider sufficiently the important 
critical work of reason with itself, and the resulting progress 
of rational self-knowledge. Neither does it, as a rule, suffi- 
ciently regard the dependence of philosophy upon the partic- 
ular sciences. 

1 See his Dialektik ; Reden iiber die Religion ; and Vertraute Briefe. 



DEFINITION OP PHILOSOPHY. 21 

But the antiquity of this conception, which identifies philoso- 
phy with some special knowledge of ultimate Beality, and its 
persistent character before the assaults of criticism and scep- 
ticism, furnish a preliminary warrant in its favor. The con- 
clusion derived from an unbiassed estimate of modern views 
confirms that derived from an historical study of the develop- 
ment of philosophy, beginning with the conception of Plato. 
As long as man aspires to know, with a rational completeness, 
what is the ultimate content of human experience, there will 
be a so-called science of Being. We find here, then, an essen- 
tial truth as to the unchanging nature of philosophy. 

The "Critique of Pure Eeason" turned the thought of men 
to a neglected aspect of the human mind ; it resulted, as has 
been shown, in bringing into prominence a new department 
of philosophy. With Kant himself this self-criticism of reason 
was the greater part of philosophical discipline. Metaphysics, 
he holds, can only exhibit the system of conceptions which the 
critical process discovers ; metaphysics, as a pure ontological 
science, cannot exist. It is this critical conclusion which is 
emphasized by the second class of definitions of philosophy. 
This definition identifies philosophy with the science of rational 
knowledge itself; it is "science of science," science of notions, 
or theory of knowledge. It may also be called rational self- 
knowledge, or science of the ultimate contents of consciousness. 

Of Fichte, who is the principal representative of this concep- 
tion, Professor Adamson has truly said : " Philosophy is to him 
the re-thinking of actual cognition, the theory of knowledge, 
the complete systematic exposition of the principles which lie 
at the basis of all reasoned cognition." "This science," says 
Fichte himself, "can be nothing but the universal knowledge, 
which has come to know of itself, and has entered a state 
of light, consciousness, and independence in regard to itself." 2 
It is well known that Herbart also made the distinct func- 

1 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. Translation by A. E. Kroger, 
St. Louis, 1869, p. 7. 



/ 



22 INTRODUCTORY. 

tion of philosophy to be the elaboration of concepts (Bear- 
beitung der Begriffe). Following in the same line of definition, 
we find one author 1 (Riehl) declaring that philosophy began 
with Locke, and that it is the science and criticism of cogni- 
tion ; another (Biedermann) speaking of the whole system of 
philosophical discipline as the "science of the notion;" and 
yet a third describing it as the science which has for its object 
of examination the function of thinking itself. By all these 
writers the criticism of the processes and presuppositions of all 
thinking is made identical with philosophy. 

Essentially the same conception of philosophy controls the 
consideration of philosophical themes in the case of two other 
suggestive modern writers. " Philosophy calls itself," says Kuno 
Fischer, " knowledge of the Universe ( Weltweisheit) ; " but " we 
call it self-knowledge." For the world is our object, our presen- 
tation; " We ourselves are the world." 2 This conception must 
be modified, however, by introducing the principle of develop- 
ment. For all the concepts with which philosophy deals, and 
the concept of philosophy itself, are developments. Nay, more, 
" This process of progressing development is the human mind." 
Philosophy, therefore, is the progressive self-knowledge of the 
human mind. 

It might be expected that intelligent advocates of a similar 
view would arise in England, where, since the time of Locke, 
philosophy has been so constantly identified with the theory of 
knowledge. Mr. Shadworth H. Hodgson, in his " Philosophy of 
Eeflection," takes great pains clearly to distinguish philosophy 
from psychology ; and would also make the former include a 
theory of Being, or Existence. Philosophy he defines, in " con- 
tradistinction to Psychological Science," as " the ultimate analy- 
sis of states of consciousness in connection with their objective 
aspects, abstracting from their conditions in the organism." 3 

1 Philosophischer Kriticismus, ii. 2, p. 15; comp. ii. 1, pp. 2 f. 

2 History of Modern Philosophy, Introduction, chap. i. 

3 See especially the chapter on "Philosophy and Science," vol. i. 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 23 

In its analytic branch, therefore, — and with Mr. Hodgson this 
seems its main branch, — it is an analysis of states of con- 
sciousness. Even in its constructive branch it is a "phi- 
losophized psychology, or the return of Metaphysic upon 
psychology." 

The factors in philosophy chiefly emphasized by such defi- 
nitions as the foregoing cannot safely be overlooked. With- 
out recognition of them no fruitful discussion of philosophical 
problems is possible, much less any attempt at a system of 
philosophy. But we may not assume in our very definition 
that the criticism of rational processes, and the synthetic rep- 
resentation of the conceptions discovered thereby, cover the 
whole domain of speculative thinking. 

Yet more comprehensive definitions of philosophy are derived 
by combining these two sets of factors, and by laying a more 
nearly equal emphasis upon both. In this way does Zeller, by 
a study of the history of philosophy, arrive at the following 
statement : " The problem of philosophy is to investigate scien- 
tifically the ultimate grounds of Being and Knowledge, and to 
comprehend all that is actual in its connection with them." 1 
Dr. E. Pfleiderer also, after defining philosophy as " the science 
of principles," remarks : " And so, one of its chief problems is 
to investigate and establish the fundamental conditions, pre- 
suppositions, and norms of cognition, — of scientific activity in 
general." 2 The view of Dr. William T. Harris should prob- 
ably be mentioned in this connection. « Philosophy," says this 
writer, "attempts to find the necessary a priori elements or 
factors in experience, and arrange them into a system by de- 
ducing them from a first principle." Von Hartmann, too, with 
a naive contradiction . of his own practice in the "Metaphysics 
of the Unconscious," expressly declares : " The theory of knowl- 
edge is the true prima philosophia." 3 

1 Grundriss der Geschichte der Griechischen Philosophie, p. 1. 

2 Die Aufgabe der Philosophie in unserer Zeit, p. 8. 

8 Preface to the eighth edition of the Philosophy of the Unconscious. 



24 INTRODUCTORY. 

Fearing — and not without reason — that the conception and 
practice of philosophy may separate their favorite pursuit too 
far from the life of conduct, the advocates of a third view 
would put emphasis upon a thought as old as Plato. This 
thought has been presented somewhat as follows by a modern 
writer. 1 Philosophy must indeed be science, as defined by its 
form and method. Thus defined, it constitutes the only means 
of raising all our most important opinions, and choicest faiths, 
to the state of invincible conviction. But if philosophy is to 
be defined as science, then it must be not as a science of mere 
thinking, but as a total and comprehensive consciousness, a 
science of the whole personality and of all that stands in con- 
nection with it, — that is, of willing and acting, of disposition 
and conduct of life. It is, then, a living effort, a striving con- 
scious of itself and of its goal, a determinate form of willing. 
Philosophy, according to form, is science ; and according to its 
content, is wisdom ( Wissenschaftlicher Weisheitswille). " It is 
the self-conscious effort of the human spirit after wisdom, in 
order to actualize the truth." 

It would be unhistorical to doubt that this third concep- 
tion of philosophy makes prominent an ancient and important 
truth. It is as old as Plato, and it was taught by Kant. In 
his " Preface to Jachmann's Examination of the Kantian Phi- 
losophy of Pieligion," Kant himself wrote : " Philosophy as sci- 
entific theory may, like every other discipline, serve as an 
instrument for attaining a variety of excellent ends, but has 
in this regard only a relative value. But philosophy, in the 
literal meaning of the word as a doctrine of wisdom ( Weisheits- 
lehre) has an absolute value ; for it is the doctrine of the final 
purpose of human reason." 

By all means let it never be forgotten that the choicest issue 
of philosophy is not merely a system of speculative thinking, 
but the production also of conduct and character. We will, 

1 Chalybaus, Fundamental philosophie, ein Versuch das System der Philosophie 
auf ein Realprincip zu griinden, p. 5 f. 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 25 

moreover, follow Kant in the passage just quoted, and address 
the man who in himself completely meets this theoretical de- 
mand, as "the perfect practical philosopher (an ideal)." But 
we cannot consent to define the doctrine solely by emphasiz- 
ing its practical aspect ; for such a definition fails to distin- 
guish philosophy, as such, from certain branches of psychology 
and ethics, and even from that fund of sound maxims and cor- 
rect moral habits which the so-called " wise man " has gathered 
from the experience of life. 

The fourth form of defining philosophy has arisen from that 
modern development of the particular sciences to which, in its 
influence on speculative thinking, reference has already been 
made. Philosophy, say its advocates, is a comprehensive and 
systematic view of all the particular sciences ; it is not so much 
science of science, or certified knowledge as such, but — as it 
were — science of all the sciences. 

The dependence of philosophy upon the particular sciences 
was emphasized by Auguste Comte in such manner as to 
amount to a denial that it has any domain of its own. The 
so-called " Positive Philosophy," with a dogmatic scepticism 
which Kant came forever to condemn, uncritically excludes 
all metaphysical problems as insoluble. In his "Problems of 
Life and Mind," Mr. Lewes, after pronouncing this exclusion 
"somewhat arbitrary and injudicious," pleads the cause of a 
philosophy which is metaphysics detached from, and not dis- 
tributed among, the sciences from which its data are drawn. 
This metaphysics, which is the sum-total of philosophy, he un- 
derstands to be a " codification of the laws of Cause." " Its 
object is the disengagement of certain most general principles, 
such as Cause, Force, Life, Mind, etc., from the sciences which 
imply these principles, and the exposition of their constituent 
elements, — the facts, sensible and logical, which these prin- 
ciples involve, and the relation of these principles." 1 That 
philosophical theory of cognition is a necessary correlated 

1 Problems of Life and Mind, * pp. 67 f, 73 f. 



26 INTRODUCTORY. 

branch of inquiry, this writer recognizes — though not very 
clearly — by giving to metaphysics the title " Objective Logic." 
In this meaning of the word " philosophy " it may be recognized 
as " a possible branch of science." 

With much firmer grasp and clearer vision does a recent 
German thinker expound and defend this conception of phi- 
losophy as a science of all the positive sciences. Its purpose, 
says Wundt, 1 is to be found in the attainment of such a sum- 
mary of the particular cognitions, in our view of the world and 
of life, as shall satisfy the demands of the intellect and the 
needs of the heart (des Gemiithes). Philosophy is, then, " the 
universal science which has to unite the cognitions, obtained 
by the particular sciences, into a consistent system." This is 
scientific philosophy ; and its divisions are to be determined by 
the general scheme of the positive sciences. 

A correct conception of philosophy must undoubtedly recog- 
nize its dependence for development, as a distinct discipline, 
upon the particular sciences. For its best growth this noblest 
child of reason requires not only to be kept in contact with all 
the forces that sway the popular life of feeling and conduct, but 
also to be trained in all the schools where certified knowledge 
of fact and law controls, where method is strictly limited, and 
where theory is constantly recalled to the test of experience. 
History amply demonstrates this necessity. The future of 
philosophy depends upon the intelligent and consistent recog- 
nition of the same necessity. 

And yet philosophy should not be defined solely by stating 
its relation of dependence upon the particular sciences. This 
would involve too wide a departure from the historical point of 
view. Philosophy was cultivated, and the most essential factors 
of its right conception recognized, for centuries before its rela- 
tion to the particular sciences was clearly discerned. The 
progress of its history shows that important elements in its 
definition and important developments in its pursuit exist 

1 System der Philosophic, Leipzig, 1889, pp. 2, 21 f. 



DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY. 27 

apart from the considerations which are emphasized by the 
definitions of Lewes and Wundt. 

We make, then, a provisional attempt to gather into a single 
sentence all the essential truths emphasized in the preceding 
four classes of conceptions. The relations of philosophy to the 
practical life, however, can be only indirectly expressed in the 
definition, through its relations to the sciences of conduct, — to 
psychology, ethics, and the science of religion. Philosophy — 
we define to be — the progressive rational system of the prin- 
ciples presupposed and ascertained by the particular sciences, in 
their relation to ultimate Reality. 

1. Philosophy treats all its material of principles with a 
view to determine their relation in a Unity of Keality ; it seeks 
to know the nature of this One ultimate Reality, if such reality 
there be. It is then the science of Being as such. 

2. Philosophy is a progressive ahoTrational system of those 
principles assumed or taken for granted in the particular sci- 
ences. It is critical of all the pre-suppositions of each form of 
positive knowledge. It is itself without pre-suppositions, be- 
sides the self-conscious existence of reason as an unfolding life. 
It is science of Knowledge, as such, — ■ a theory of cognition. 

3. Inasmuch as there are sciences which consider the phe- 
nomena of ethical, sesthetical, and religious life, of conduct, 
character, social relations, religious aspiration, worship, etc. ; 
and inasmuch as there are principles presupposed or ascertained 
by these sciences which apparently stand in a peculiar relation 
to ultimate Eeality, — philosophy involves the effort to actualize 
the truth of these sciences in wisdom. It "deals with those 
riddles by which our mind is oppressed in life ; " it is practical, 
and cannot be divorced from disposition, faith, hope, and ethical 
conviction. 

4. But philosophy is in certain aspects strictly dependent, 
for its legitimate domain and successful cultivation, upon sci- 
entific spirit and scientific method; it draws from and deals 
with the whole round of the positive sciences. It may be 



28 INTRODUCTORY. 

defined with Ueberweg as "the science of the Universe, not 
according to its details, but according to the principles which 
condition all particulars ; " or as the science of the principles 
of what is knowable by means of the special sciences. 

This definition of philosophy, thus justified by an appeal to 
the history of the term and to the different classes of current 
conceptions, will serve to guide our subsequent inquiries. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

THE answer to the question, Whence comes philosophy? 
must be framed in accordance with our conception of 
the nature of philosophy. Now, since philosophy is a progres- 
sive and rational system, its fundamental impulses must belong 
to the life and growth of reason itself ; and since it seeks to 
know both the highest and the most fundamental verities, it 
must spring from the noblest and most strenuous of rational 
impulses. It is not sufficient, however, to refer the origin of 
philosophy in a general way to the reason of man, and to 
affirm that it is inseparable from the activity and development 
of reason, — although this is a remark which frequently occurs 
in the history of human thought. 

Plato found the main root of philosophy in Eros, a deeply 
seated and passionate longing of man for communion with 
the world of eternal realities. At the beginning of his Meta- 
physics, Aristotle declares that " all men by nature reach after 
knowledge." 1 In the opening words of his " Convito," Dante 
translates with approval the declaration of the Greek thinker. 2 
This sentence Mr. Shadworth Hodgson 3 echoes by declaring 
that " the need to philosophize is rooted in our nature as deeply 
as any other of our needs." Starting from the scientific point 
of view in the formation of his conception, we have seen how 
Wundt affirms that a philosophical view of the world is ne- 
cessary " to satisfy the demands of the intellect and the needs 

1 Ildvret dvOpuiroi rod eldfrai dpiyovrai <f>v<rei. 

2 Tutti gli uomini naturalmente desiderano di sapere. 
8 Time and Space, p. 14. 



30 SOURCES OP PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

of the heart." The purpose of philosophy, says another mod- 
ern German writer, is the satisfaction of our metaphysical 
needs, — " the effort, namely, which dwells in all men, but 
in most unconsciously, after the knowledge of the Being and 
the Connection of things ! " * And Lotze, in the Introduction 
to his "Encyclopaedia of Philosophy," warns us against sup- 
posing that philosophy is a discipline so peculiar in its na- 
ture and methods as to be adapted only to the pursuit of 
the few. The rather is it nothing else than "the strenuous 
effort of the human spirit " to find a solution for those riddles 
about which we are all compelled to hold some view in order 
to live at all. 

But why plead that philosophy is essentially and thoroughly 
human, and that without its pursuit much of the noblest and 
most rational part of human nature must be left unsatisfied ? 
Only unworthy ignorance or invincible prejudice will be found 
ready to deny so obvious a truth. It is not, however, a suffi- 
cient answer to the inquiry, Whence does philosophy spring ? 
to refer it in general to the nature of man as a rational being ; 
some more detailed and analytic account of its origin is re- 
quired. The influence of the more important particular activ- 
ities in that complex of forms of thinking, feeling, and willing 
which we are accustomed to call the " human reason " must 
be traced with some detail. Moreover, it would be a serious 
mistake to suppose that philosophy lives and grows simply 
as the result of definite intellectual aims. It has indeed, dur- 
ing modern times, defined more clearly than ever before the 
problems which it feels the need of pursuing; it has also 
acknowledged, with more than traditional modesty, its depend- 
ence upon the general advance of human knowledge in the 
form of the particular sciences. And yet if, by speaking of 
" rational " impulses as furnishing the fundamental and im- 
perishable sources of philosophy, we mean solely to emphasize 

1 Kober, Das philosophische System E. von .Hartmann's, p. 1 (in express 
agreement with Schopenhauer). 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 31 

the fondness of man, natural or acquired, for speculative think- 
ing, we cherish far too narrow a view of the right answer to 
this inquiry. By thought man lives, and yet not by thought 
alone. It is only by recognizing the truth, that the rational 
being penetrates and transforms the entire life, — sensation, 
motion, perception, instinct, feeling, oesthetical and ethical idea- 
tion and emotion, as well as choice, — that we can fully account 
for the origin of philosophy by referring it to " human reason." 

One of the more primary sources of philosophy is that naive 
or more intelligent wonder with which man stands — as ante- 
cedent to philosophical reflection, and yet a principal stimulus 
of such reflection — before the phenomena of nature. For 
the average man the phrase " phenomena of nature " signifies 
an exceedingly narrow domain. The special student of the 
physical sciences thinks of nature as a realm of entities and 
forces, to the uniformities of whose relations he is learning 
to give an ever-increasing accuracy of mathematical expression. 
To such an one the most pressing need of philosophical treat- 
ment for the deeper problems of nature customarily comes only 
as an indirect result ; it arises after the insufficiency of the 
particular sciences to deal with these problems has become 
matter of recognized experience. 

The case of the untutored man, if he have a mind at all 
reflective, is favorable for realizing in its most primitive form 
the energy of this particular impulse toward philosophy. He 
stands face to face with a little world of natural objects, and of 
happenings among those objects. For most of these things and 
events he knows of no so-called " scientific " explanation. The 
inducement to discover the invariable sequences among the 
phenomena is not large. He may exist in mingled depend- 
ence upon nature and mastery over it, by attributing the di- 
rection and flight of his arrow to the structure of his bow 
and the pull of his arm, his sensations of warmth to the sun 
or to the fire, the coming of children to the act of procrea- 
tion, the drift of his canoe to the currents of water and wind. 



32. SOUKCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PKOBLEM. 

Beyond these and similar few and simple inductions he feels 
little need, and makes little use of science, however crude and 
inchoate. But he wonders why things exist and happen as 
they do; for the very structure of his mind impels him to 
interest in the beings and events about him, and to inquiry 
after their causes. Why does his child sicken and die ? Why 
does the lightning strike here rather than there ? How does 
the corn grow in the ground, and the bones of his offspring 
in the womb of its mother? It is to a metaphysical rather 
than a scientific answer to these inquiries that his need im- 
pels and compels him. He knows nothing of microbes and 
atoms, of storm-centres and electrical fluids. He does not wait 
to approach the solution of these problems after having gone 
through the temple of an inductive physics, physiology, or 
meteorology. His naive wonder, joined to that necessary and 
rational impulse to explain which is recognized by philosophy 
in the so-called universal " principle of sufficient reason," drives 
him forward upon the road of speculative thinking. He adopts 
the metaphysical explanation ; and all that is left unexplained 
by his meagre list of uniform physical sequences he perhaps 
ascribes to some one entity, — spirit like himself, or blind, 
unreasoning force. And since with him the causae occultce 
so vastly outnumber the causes which are known as estab- 
lished uniformities, the sphere of his metaphysics covers far 
more of his mental life than the sphere of his scientific 
knowledge. He does not systematize, however. 

It was partly in the way just described that, as a matter of 
history, philosophy had its source in human nature as a crude 
and primitive cosmological speculation. In modern times — 
itself a science, in acknowledged dependence upon the culture 
and attainments of all the particular sciences — it makes use 
of essentially the same human interest and human activities, 
though in a different way. The realm of occult causes is not 
banished, but rather more firmly established, by the physics of 
to-day. We now know the " why " of many things before un* 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 33 

known ; and doubtless physical science will continue its con- 
quests in this domain. And yet by these conquests the realm 
of occult causes is not even narrowed, but constantly enlarged. 
Nor can we say that this realm is removed farther from us, 
whether in time or in space, by the progress of the particular 
sciences. For occult causes are here and now present in every 
phenomenon, no matter how fully explained it may be said 
to be by all the results of modern physical discoveries. 

The relation of the physical sciences to philosophy is not 
such, however, as to exclude the latter from the possibility, 
and even from the right, of considering every natural phe- 
nomenon from its own point of view. When the appearance 
of naivete has departed from the wonder with which man 
contemplates nature, the strength of the wonder and the 
philosophical impulse which it imparts are not also neces- 
sarily gone. 

Explanation, indeed ! and yet how much in every case left 
unexplained! May not the more cultivated man feel all the 
more strongly the temptation, at every point, to strike into 
the realm of natural phenomena with a metaphysical faith, or 
postulate, or reasoned theory, which shall hold out the attrac- 
tive promise of showing to him the more interior mechanism, 
or the real meaning, of this realm ? 

But it is with the individual in his development as it has 
been with the history of the race. The reflections in which 
philosophy chiefly consists do not concern the origin, nature, 
and destiny of things. It is in the consciousness of self, rather 
than in objective consciousness, — or rather, it is in the reflec- 
tive consciousness which converts the inner stream of life into 
an object, — that the more vigorous sources of philosophy are 
to be found. Whence do I come, and whence come the living 
men who surround me ? For I cannot avoid believing them 
to be the possessors, with myself, of those intellectual and 
emotional interests and aptitudes which make man the so- 
called rational one among the animals. Whither, too, are 

3 



34 S0UECE3 OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

we in common going ? And what in reality is this being I 
call myself, — its connection with reality in general, its sig- 
nificance, and its value ? 

When such inquiries as the foregoing are once raised by 
man's mind, he stands face to face — at first with a simplicity 
of wonder akin to that which possesses the untutored mind 
when it looks upon the realm of external nature — with a 
world of another kind. To the impulse from wonder, joined 
with reason's unceasing demand for more complete explana- 
tion, is now added the unsurpassed interest which man takes 
in his own conscious life. Even uninstructed observation 
serves to unite under the principle of uniformity the rise of 
the body of the individual — its racial, family, and individual 
characteristics — with his progenitors. This body comes from 
the parents by a process which is natural, and which affords 
a visible explanation of its own appearance in the world of 
things. But whence comes the conscious life, the subject to 
which the changing states are referred, the one I call myself ? 
When, at a certain stage in the mental evolution of the indi- 
vidual and of the race, this question is first intelligently pro- 
pounded, an added impulse is given to philosophical inquiry. 
This question, at a certain stage in all unchecked development, 
is sure to be propounded. It at once gathers to itself all the 
interest which the Ego feels in whatever concerns its own life. 

Ordinary observation also furnishes every man with material 
for the induction that he, like the others of his kind around him, 
is going to die. This is a mystery which, on first reflection, 
seems to the mind to involve in itself the contradiction of 
being and not-being at the same time. Others who have al- 
ready died are not sensibly existent — to me, to their friends 
or to their enemies, until the end of time. And yet I cannot 
picture to myself the dying of myself, if by this be meant the 
cessation at once and forever of all my conscious life. Doubt- 
less my body will continue, visibly and tangibly, to be, for a 
time (as have the bodies of other dead persons), after the mys- 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 35 

tery of death has come to me. Some sort of separation is then 
possible, at least in imagination, between this body and what I 
am entitled to call " myself." The question of destiny thus 
becomes for the primitive man, in its natural and most inter- 
esting form, the inquiry : Whither do we go at death ? 

To the questioning of the human spirit concerning its own 
origin and destiny, certain of the particular sciences attempt 
to furnish an answer. Histology, embryology, and physiology 
approach the question of origin, and deal with it more or less 
successfully, on the physical side of the twofold being of man. 
Biology strives to reduce to terms of a general mechanical 
theory the phenomena of life, — such as those of metabolism, 
propagation by fissure, and the " amoeboid " movements of bio- 
plasm. This general theory it attempts to apply to the body of 
man. Embryology traces the evolution of the human offspring 
from the impregnated egg until its outfit of organs is complete ; 
it tells the marvellous story how by segmentation and prolifera- 
tion of cells, by deposit and differentiation of layers of cells, — 
epiblast, mesoblast, and hypoblast, — and by progressive changes 
of these layers, under mechanical and vital conditions, the new- 
born infant has come to be. That is, it aims to give the com- 
plete description of the history of the " becoming " of the 
individual body. Physiology then essays to finish the work 
of explanation. To accomplish this, it employs the aid of his- 
tology and general molecular physics and chemistry. 

Thus does modern physical science attempt to push its 
researches toward the ultimate secrets that concern the genesis 
of human life. 

The childlike theological views of the ancient Hebrews, in 
common with those of all the great Oriental nations, connected 
the divine interest and agency in some special way with the 
origin of human life. In their thought, God was pre-eminently 
the author and disposer of all life ; he was the giver of the new 
life of every new-born child. To this feeling, that the genesis 
and growth of man are not wholly explained by appeal to vis- 



36 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

ible acts and processes, the heart of the untutored man every- 
where responds. Nor do the utmost efforts of the modern 
sciences succeed in removing this impression ; with its thought- 
ful student, life, over and above and underneath all scientific 
explanations, calls attention to the presence of the Unexplained. 
This presence is brought so near to all our interests, and it 
seems, by the complexity and apparent freedom of the phe- 
nomena, so to baffle the utmost conceivable extension of sci- 
entific methods, that the bare recognition of it becomes a 
strong stimulus toward' philosophical research. Indeed, mod- 
ern biology is one of the most important handmaids of modern 
philosophy. 

What is true of the genesis of man's bodily life is more obvi- 
ously true of his mental being and development. Whoever 
has attained a certain stage of psychological development, in- 
fallibly distinguishes — whether scientifically or unjustifiably, 
whether for his intellectual weal or woe — between himself and 
his body. No scientific explanation which applies merely to 
the genesis of the body will then satisfy the inquiry : Whence 
do / come ? Doubtless with most men in the earlier stages 
of the mental evolution of the race, and with every man in 
the earlier stages of his individual evolution, the two ques- 
tions are not clearly distinguished. But they certainly come 
to be distinguished whenever a certain stage is reached in the 
development of both race and individual. Biology, psycho- 
physics, and psychology therefore essay to treat scientifically 
the genesis of consciousness and of self-conscious rational life. 

It is not easy for the ordinary man, even after he has some- 
what clearly conceived the inquiry into the origin of conscious- 
ness and of the higher rational activities, to understand what is 
meant by ascribing it to physical processes. And indeed the 
expert student of biology and physiological psychology is little 
better off. How does consciousness come to be, as the result of 
physical processes ? How does human reason arise — with its 
discourse about " metempirical " entities and "transcendental" 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 37 

causes, about freedom, ideal beauty, immortal life, the " ought " 
with its categorical imperative, and the grand ideal Reality 
called God — as the result of similar processes ? 

From the strong impulse to inquire into the origin of self- 
conscious and rational life, and from the powerlessness of the 
particular sciences to answer the inquiry, philosophy receives 
much assistance. It becomes the refuge of disappointed and 
eager questioners. It may fail, in its turn, to satisfy the diffi- 
cult conditions required of the answer to any of this question- 
ing, but in the questioning itself resides one of the principal 
sources of its own life. 

At a certain stage in the development of the individual and 
of the race, inquiry arises — and with how great interest to 
the reflective soul ! — as to the destiny of the life of self -con- 
sciousness. Obviously, with death the more tangible and visi- 
ble evidence of the body is at an end. So intimately associated 
is this bodily life with the entire conception of existence, and 
even with the possibility of existence, that the more primitive 
reflections of man indissolubly connect the two. But the ap- 
propriate physical sciences show beyond question that death 
terminates that organic and vital union of the physical ele- 
ments on which the bodily life depends. Death, says science, 
ends the body, by returning its constituent material, from the 
highly complex forms of elaboration it had attained to lower 
and more stable combinations. But does death end all ? Is 
it the destiny of that self-conscious and rational subject, a con- 
ception of which the man has succeeded in detaching from the 
flowing stream of sensations and perceptions, — is it the destiny 
of the Ego also to cease to be ? To form a positive conception 
of the total cessation of the life of conscious feeling and thought 
is plainly impossible. This impotency — if one please so to call 
it — acts, not as a rational argument, but as a blind impulse, so 
as to favor the belief in a continued existence for the soul. But 
the same positive sciences which aim to explain the genesis of 
mind and the cessation as well as the genesis of the body, als'o 



38 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

aim to treat the question of its mortality. They thus speedily 
come, not only upon many unsolved psycho-physical problems, 
but also upon certain considerations derived from departments of 
human knowledge and human feeling with which they are not 
fitted to deal. Their lack of success reinforces the impulse 
to philosophical reflection which is derived from man's natural 
interest in the destiny of the life of self-conscious feeling and 
thought. 

For the question of the so-called " natural " immortality of 
the mind is not primarily a question for theology, nor is it 
chiefly a question for physical science. It is primarily and 
chiefly a psychological and philosophical inquiry. For it is 
psychology, descriptive and theoretical, which inquires into the 
nature of mind ; and it is philosophy which attempts to dis- 
cern the more ultimate relations in which Mind stands to Mat- 
ter, Time, Space, and that ultimate Reality which philosophy 
knows as the Absolute, but which religious faith receives as the 
Heavenly Father, God. The interest which every self-conscious 
reason takes in its own continued existence gives reflective ear- 
nestness to the question : Whither am I going ? It thus lends 
impulse to philosophical inquiry ; it is a source of that product 
of reflection which is called philosophy. 

More maturity of reflective analysis is implied in the inquiry, 
What am I ? than in the inquiries, Whence do I come ? and 
Whither am I going? The problem of the metaphysical na- 
ture of mind arises late in the history of mental evolution. 
Yet when once raised, this later inquiry proves itself even more 
provokingly difficult and baffling, though scarcely less interest- 
ing as viewed from both the theoretical and the practical points 
of view. 

Simply to be conscious and sentient, this seems to most men 
a sufficiently accurate statement in answer to all inquiry after 
the real nature of the mind. And, indeed, the most thoroughly 
reflective and consistent thinking has difficulty in saying much 
more. The intelligent child, or the adult of untutored but 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 39 

thoughtful mind, first makes answer to the question, What am 
I ? by a psychical or physical gesture directed toward certain 
of the more obvious bodily parts. The precise meaning of 
this demonstration is not, I am my heart, my head, or the 
viscera I call mine ; much less is it that any of these organs 
or all of them combined constitutes the whole of what I call 
"myself.'" The gesture means rather, by indicating some of 
the more prominent forms of localized sensibility, to insist 
upon the primary but indescribable actuality of the life of 
conscious feeling and thought. To the question, What are 
you ? the strong inclination of the earlier stages of the de- 
velopment of reflective consciousness is to respond, Here am 
I. But the presence of the Ego with itself is never undif- 
ferentiated or abstract ; it is always a definite and concrete 
presence in some particular form of sentient life. The sentio 
or cogito, ergo sum, is not simply equivalent to sentiens or 
cogitans sum; it is rather equivalent to the declaration of 
an existing complex of feeling and ideation, in which the 
more persistent and prominent factors are localized bodily 
sensibility. 

It is true that, by the process of the mind's unfolding, there 
comes to exist, in the case of the more reflective members of 
the race, a conception of the " self " that is highly abstract and 
separated from all the more obvious references to bodily activ- 
ities. The formation of this conception is helped forward by 
reflection upon the problems of the origin and destiny of man. 
If a scientific description of the physical processes in which 
the body begins and ceases to be, is not a satisfactory answer 
to the question, Whence do I come ? and Whither do I go ? 
it would also seem that a satisfactory answer to the inquiry, 
What, in real essence, am I ? cannot consist of a simple appeal 
to localized bodily sensibility. 

There are other more obvious reasons, however, why the 
reflecting mind of the adult is not satisfied with the child's 
answer to the inquiry, What am I ? The progress of experi- 



40 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

ence, through abstracting and relating thought, eliminates one 
by one from the conception of the "self" the factors of the 
general conception of the body. Two conceptions come, there- 
fore, to be formed, — distinct, and yet in their genesis and 
growth curiously interrelated. My body is mine, and not my- 
self. I am ; and I have a body. But then, what am I that 
have, but am not, my body ? To this question the more cul- 
tivated stage of reflection, when unaided by philosophy, makes 
direct and uncritical answer in the form of a conception of 
the soul or spiritual principle. The conception itself is of 
course only a complex mental product, having its ground in 
memory-images of past concrete experiences. The answer 
amounts, then, simply to saying, I am — what I remember 
myself and others of my kind to have thought, felt, and done. 
But this answer seems plainly inadequate to the now aroused 
and inquiring mind. 

The sciences of biology, psycho-physics, and psychology prof- 
fer their assistance in completing the answer to the inquiry 
after the essential nature of man. The first of these sciences 
describes the particular form of life which man possesses in its 
relation to its environment and to other living forms. But 
this description fails to satisfy wholly the self-conscious rational 
soul when it inquires after the essence of its own life. Psycho- 
physics further explains man as the fortunate owner of an 
incomparably superior central nervous organism, and as stimu- 
lated, conditioned, and compelled to the forth-putting of sen- 
tient life by the action of physical forces within and upon this 
organism. And then psychology — descriptive, non-metaphy- 
sical, and " without a soul " — essays a similar task. It gives, 
with all the details made possible by introspection and modern 
experimental methods, the history of the formation of the con- 
ception of " self." It regards this very conception as the result 
of a process of evolution. The conception is, therefore, in its 
very nature subject to change, different for different individuals 
and for different epochs in the development of the race, — 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 41 

different also for the same individual under different circum- 
stances and at different times. 

The effort of descriptive psychology to discover some fixed 
kernel of reality, as it were, in the midst of this shifting com- 
plex of images so loosely united under the common term " my- 
self," seems to meet with an insufficient reward. And this 
excites small surprise in one who admits the truth of considera- 
tions which Herbart * has especially emphasized, I am myself, 
is the sole answer which, it would seem, can be given by psy- 
chology, thus pursued, to the inquiry, Who, or what, am I ? 
For all perception in time is a process ; hence, by " perception 
in time I can never find myself at all, as the one who I really 
am." And all my effort is but a waltzing about in a circle, 
where the Ego representing itself and the Ego represented by 
itself form a mysterious couple, — a one that dissolves itself 
into two, that unite themselves again into one. I am, then, a 
process ; and all my conceptions of selfhood, personal identity, 
reality of being, are shifting moments and elements of the 
process. 

But this answer of scientific psychology is least of all satis- 
factory to the inquiry of self-conscious rational man. For man 
is a metaphysical being. He postulates and confides in reality, 
although he may not find himself able to comprehend reality, 
or even to explain the genesis and significance of his own pos- 
tulate and belief. And if there be reality anywhere, how could 
it fail to be embraced in man's own self-conscious rational life ? 
How, otherwise, should he even postulate and believe in reality ? 
Thus is the mind of man driven by the impulse of its primitive 
or more mature inquiry after the nature of what he calls his 
" soul," his ego, his " self," to the pursuit of philosophy. In 
the form of rational psychology, or the metaphysics of mind, 
philosophy at least promises a further and more searching crit- 
icism of these important conceptions. 

The considerations just mentioned have brought us near to 



Psychologie, Kbnigsberg, 1824, i. 85 f. 



42 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

the border-line of more distinctively ethical, sesthetical, and 
religious feelings and thoughts. " What called forth Greek 
philosophy," says Zeller, '•' was originally not so much the de- 
sire for knowledge as the feeling of dependence upon higher 
powers and the wish to secure their favor." *■ Not among the 
Greeks alone, but also among all primitive peoples, the impulses 
to religious faith, doctrine, and worship have been also sources 
from which philosophy has sprung. And not only so; for 
many of those more obscure forms of feeling and ideation that 
lie at the base of the beliefs and practical life of morals', 
art, and religion are important impulses toward philosophical 
reflection as well. 

There naturally arise, even in the experience of the most un- 
reflecting, certain vague and indefinite feelings which impel 
toward the search for the Invisible and toward an effort for the 
establishment of right relations toward the Invisible. Fears of 
injury to the person, to the dwelling, or to the relatives of the 
primitive man stir an obscure consciousness of the presence 
of some power that can make for his weal or woe, but cannot 
be guarded against by sensible barriers or weapons, or by the 
precautions which suffice for dealing with the objects of ordi- 
nary sensible experience. Out of this feeling of fearful depen- 
dence or of awe springs one of the roots of religious faith and 
life. The same feeling is also a root for the growth of philos- 
ophy as well. As knowledge of the sources of danger and of 
the means for guarding against them increases, the reasons for 
fear and awe are not removed from the heart of man. The 
realm of the dreadful that is also the mysterious is scarcely 
diminished at all by the development of our experience of those 
things that are visible, tangible, and calculable. Here, then, is 
an unceasing intimation of the presence of a mysterious un- 
known Cause of disaster or of success with which man is inter- 
ested to come to a reckoning. He worships in propitiation of 

1 Grundriss der Geschichte der Griechischen Philosophie, § 2. (Translation : 
Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, New York, 1886.) 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 43 

it, and speculates as to what it is, and as to what are the 
relations to it in which it will be possible and best for him to 
stand. Not alone among the sensitive ancient Greeks and 
among other primitive peoples in less degree, but also in the 
case of the most cultivated modern nations, philosophy springs, 
with religion, from this common root. 

There are other higher and more distinctively ethical forms 
of feeling and ideation which give rise both to philosophy and 
to religion. These fruits of the ethical being of man were pro- 
duced long before even the blossoms were put forth which may 
some day develop into a science of ethics. Such a science on 
the sociological side and as studied under the guidance of the 
idea of evolution, has now only just begun to collect its "data;" 
it will doubtless be some time before it will be a science in any- 
thing more than name. As studied from the individual and 
introspective points of view, ethics is not an independent sci- 
ence at all ; it is only a branch, or rather an aspect, of psychol- 
ogy. But the existence of attempts at a moral philosophy is as 
old as the beginnings of reflective thought ; and at its begin- 
nings this existence has its sources in common with those of 
religion. 

Among the more important of those forms of ethical life in 
which philosophy finds an originating impulse, are the idea of 
'"' the ought " and the feeling of moral obligation. Something of 
that unconditional and absolute character which Kant claimed 
for this idea doubtless belongs to it in the mind of men in all 
times and stages of their evolution. What I ought, I may 
learn by consultation of my parents, my companions, my eccle- 
siastical, social, or political connections ; or from my own im- 
pressions and judgments relative to my position, opportunities, 
etc. But that i" ought at all, — this is a unique fact of the 
mind's life which seems to demand another kind of explanation. 

The idea of the Ought, and its correlated feeling of obliga- 
tion, doubtless impel men, both uncritically to believe in and 
intelligently to search for, a " ground " in reality on which the 



44 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

idea and the feeling may rest. The belief is in itself a source 
of religion. The belief and the rational search for its more 
clear and objective determination give rise to moral philosophy. 

Now, it is conceivable — at least, we will for the present 
assume it to be conceivable — that evolutionary ethics will 
some time dispel the almost universal confidence of mankind 
that a "ground" exists in the ultimate Reality for distinctively 
ethical feelings and ideas. But such a result, if it could 
be placed on scientific grounds, would be difficult to reconcile 
with the rational interpretation of certain historical facts. Men 
have turned, in faith or fear, toward gods many and toward 
one God under influence from the feeling of moral obligation. 
Under the same influence have they been impelled to inquire 
into the nature of that absolute Being to which the feeling in 
themselves corresponds ; and also into the relations in reality, 
sustained by themselves and others, toward this Being. Is the 
ultimate Reality ethical or non-ethical in its essence ? Is the 
obligation, which appears in human consciousness as a restless 
feeling or vague perception of a bond between man and the 
Absolute, sure to be exacted in the realm of reality ? If so, 
what is its guarantee; and what, in case of payment or failure, 
is its outcome in invisible spaces and far distant times ? There 
can be no doubt that men have been driven to reflective think- 
ing and to its issue in philosophy by a strong and imperishable 
interest in questions such as these. 

The statement just made is in some sort true, not only of 
the worshipper of the fetich who aims by physical propitiation 
to forestall his dues with the unseen Reality, but also of the 
modern writer of polished essay who courteously acknowl- 
edges the existence of a " Power not ourselves which makes 
for righteousness." No theist could undertake to show with 
more ardor and elaboration than does Schopenhauer that the 
" Ground " of all reality is to be regarded as the philosophical 
account of the life of human character and human conduct. 
With him it is Will as " thing-in-itself," — timeless, uncon- 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 45 

scious, unknown, except that it is will, — which is the alone 
free, eternal in justice and benevolence. And has not Mr. 
Spencer himself spoken of ethical and religious beliefs and in- 
stitutions as " modes of manifestation of the Unknowable ; " 
and has he not appealed, in justification of his own belief, to 
the Unknown Cause who produced the belief in him, and there- 
by " authorized him to profess and act out that belief " ? 

It is for reasons such as these that " moral philosophy," or 
the metaphysical treatment of the grounds and nature of duty 
and obligation, is far older in history and more deeply rooted 
in rational impulses than is any empirical science of ethics so 
called. This statement may not be to the taste of the modern 
student of ethical phenomena from the evolutionist's point of 
view. But the facts on which one may rely for making the 
statement are no unimportant part of the phenomena. They 
show at least the truth of our reference to the ethical being 
of man as a principal source of philosophy. 

There exist also certain distinctively sesthetical feelings and 
obscure forms of ideation in which philosophy has its source. 
To whatever seems beautiful in perception or imagination, — 
to the graceful, the harmonious, the sublime, — the heart of 
man responds with emotions and thoughts which, when devel- 
oped in their finer and more cultured forms, are not improperly 
held to be activities of "reason" itself. The object of this 
feeling for the beautiful is considered to have an unconditioned 
value. The thoughts prompted by intuition of the beautiful 
object lead to a postulated ground for themselves and for the 
emotions in some ultimate and supreme Reality. With such 
activities of human nature both art and religion are concerned ; 
both look to such activities for an explanation of their own 
origin and significance. Art and religion, though far from 
being the same, have many common roots struck down deep 
into the feeling and ideating of man. They both customarily 
assume the existence, extra-men tally, of that which is surpass- 
ingly beautiful and sublime. In the unreflecting forms of union 



46 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

which they have oftentimes agreed to assume in history, they 
have not always by any means served the interests of a purer 
morality, but they have borne witness to a certain real affinity 
of origin. This is true alike of the debased worship of beauty 
in connection with heathen temples and of the " beauty of holi- 
ness " that, as a controlling idea, moulded the temple of Jeho- 
vah. And when our modern art, under the name of " realism," 
in painting, sculpture, prose or poetic romantic literature, dis- 
regards or offends the power of ethical ideals with the claim to 
a peculiar relationship with divinity, its action is the more mis- 
chievous because its claim has at its basis so much of undoubted 
truth. Indeed, the invincible persuasion of man that whatever 
is most grand and beautiful in his own ideal world must be 
existent in the world of Eeality, is one of the strongest supports 
of religion. It is the very essence and life of several of the 
strongest "arguments," so called, for the being of God. 

But the attempt of reflection to justify by thought the feel- 
ings and obscure forms of mental representation to which 
reference has just been made, constitutes also a source of phi- 
losophy. That the Being, out of whose nature and action all 
physical phenomena and all experience of mind are to be de- 
rived, is grand and sublime, seems to follow upon the most 
primitive consideration almost as a matter of course. The 
theory of " the beautiful," as a definite and carefully cultivated 
form of philosophical discipline, has no doubt had a far less 
notable place in history than the theory of " the ought." " The 
Good " of the Platonic philosophy was, however, aesthetically as 
well as ethically good. And all along the course of the devel- 
opment of speculative thought certain considerations, appertain- 
ing more fitly either to aesthetics alone or to ethics alone, have 
been treated without distinction of the field in which they be- 
longed. This treatment has resulted in confusion. But the 
fact of its existence enforces the claim that the eesthetical being 
of man must be recognized as a principal source of philosophy. 

We should gain little for our present purpose by tracing the 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 47 

sources and development of particular eras, schools, or national 
types of philosophy. This work belongs rather to the writer on 
the history of philosophy, or on the philosophy of history. The 
philosophical position and growth of any age or people is an 
exceedingly complex result. The account of it includes a mul- 
titude of particular influences. The physical and commercial 
conditions of any people, its educational and especially its polit- 
ical and religious status, act strongly upon the rise and cultiva- 
tion of philosophy. In every age and among all peoples, the 
prevalent views on philosophical subjects are also to be regarded 
in their connection with the preceding and surrounding stream 
of reflective rational life. Especially is it true of modern times 
and nations that the sources of any particular development of 
philosophy cannot be successfully considered as existing apart 
from the general current of the world's thought. In regard of 
them, Kuno Fischer's conception of philosophy is emphatically 
true, — it is the progressive self-knowledge of the human mind ; 
an evolution of the self-conscious reason of the race. In 
each case, too, — no matter how close the connection with other 
eras and peoples may appear to be, — if there is a fresh upris- 
ing of mind and a marked development of speculative thought, 
an unexplained residuum of causes, as it were, will be left to be 
assigned to the genius of great individuals, or of the time, or of 
the people at large (the Zeitgeist). 

Doubtless, too, the action of those permanent and universal 
sources of all philosophy in reason itself, the more precise 
nature of which we have been trying to determine, is different 
in different cases and at different epochs in the evolution of the 
race. Some individual thinkers and some communities of re- 
flective minds — schools or epochs or national types — resort to 
philosophy chiefly from the ethical or religious interest ; others 
from the more purely intellectual, in the determination to at- 
tain a scientific system for their views of nature, mind, conduct, 
life, and all Eeality. To say this, is essentially the same thing 
as to say that the various main sources of philosophical disci- 



48 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

pline are not always operative with the same absolute or rela- 
tive strength of impulse. That these sources always exist and 
operate as the main sources, and that the foregoing analysis of 
them is correct, the progress of the discussion will show. In- 
deed, the true and complete division of the departments of 
philosophical discipline follows directly from the analysis of its 
sources. 

A writer of some fifteen years ago 1 declared that, for us and 
for the epochs preceding ours, " philosophy is no longer a pre- 
eminently Quietistic mode of contemplating the universe, but is 
rather an essentially restless and active principle for the many- 
sided shaping of life." Philosophy is then the development of 
the highest form of the consciousness of the world and of life. 
Doing and thinking, willing and knowing, active transforma- 
tion and passive mirroring of the world, are the two sides of this 
consciousness. This view of philosophy contains important 
truth ; it is truth, however, which is recognizable, not only in 
the modern epoch, but also in all epochs of the development of 
rational life. For the essential nature of philosophy as a pre- 
cise form of rational activity is unalterably determined by the 
nature of its sources in the rational being of man. 

As long, however, as the pursuit of philosophy is ascribed 
simply to the undisciplined action of certain constitutional im- 
pulses, its highest and most truly scientific development is not 
secured or explained. The modern conception of philosophy 
aims to make it more amenable than it has hitherto been to 
scientific tests and to the scientific method. This form of 
rational life may difference itself from the particular sciences if 
it can ; but it may not advance its speculations or alleged intu- 
itional truths and postulates in disregard of these sciences. It 
may go forth undismayed into the realm of the unknown, even 
beyond those unseen and intangible entities called atoms and 
energies, with which physical science underlays the world of 

1 Duhring, Cursus der Philosophie als streng wissensehaftlicher Weltanschau- 
ung und Lebensgestaltung, p. 1 f. 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 49 

phenomena ; it may go into the most profound depths and most 
transcendent heights of speculation ; but it must not lose its 
vital touch with the concrete and verifiable facts and realities 
that secure soberness and certainty to physical science. Its 
walk may be with the Infinite and the Absolute, but the solid 
ground of admitted experience must be beneath its feet. It 
must show its humility not only before God, but also before the 
students of the positive forms of human knowledge. 

The justice of such demands is, with us, not simply a confes- 
sion, it is rather an indubitable inference from the very nature 
of philosophy ; for however we may be inclined to make dis- 
tinctions between science and philosophy, we cannot forget that 
both are the outcome of the same human nature placed in the 
same environment. The need of explanation — the need to 
know, not only for the sake of knowing itself, but also for the 
sake of satisfying the demands of the heart and of basing the 
conduct of the individual and of society in verifiable principles 
— gives rise to both. And if philosophy is to make good its 
claim to a domain of its own, and to freedom of control within 
that domain, it must acknowledge in a more than merely theo- 
retical way its dependence upon the positive sciences. But it 
must also prove its power to furnish reasonable grounds for the 
hope of a fuller satisfaction of this need than can be afforded by 
these sciences. 

The inquiry, What is the Problem of Philosophy ? admits of 
various answers, dependent upon somewhat different views taken 
of the nature, sources, and method of philosophy. Looked at in 
the light of the two most prominent factors in the customary 
conception of philosophy, it may be said that its problem is to 
discover and establish a true metaphysics, in its two branches 
of ontology and theory of knowledge. To avoid the odium at- 
tached to the word " metaphysics," we may state essentially the 
same problem in a number of different ways. Thus we have 
seen that Zeller declares that the function of the philosopher is 
not simply to investigate the ultimate grounds of Knowledge and 

4 



50 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

Being, but also to comprehend all that is actual in its connec- 
tion with them. And after Brodbeck, following Schleiermacher, 
has shown that philosophy, as pure thinking, seeks the perfect 
agreement of thought with the whole domain of being, in so far 
as being is knowable, he hastens to explain : its problem is to 
make the organism of thinking a true representative of the 
organism of the world. 

Both the foregoing definitions of the problem of philosophy 
contain the postulate of some unity of real being and life ex- 
tending through the world of nature and of mind. And, indeed, 
without such a postulate no worthy and comprehensive concep- 
tion of this problem can be framed, no significant attempt at its 
solution can be made. It is, of course, the business of philo- 
sophy to clarify and defend this postulate; but without the 
postulate, I repeat, even the conception of the problem of phi- 
losophy cannot be formed. This position must be maintained 
in opposition to those who would restrict philosophy to a theory 
of knowledge, and so make its sole problem the establishment 
of such a theory in satisfactory philosophical form. 

Those who desire to emphasize the practical benefits of phi- 
losophy would define its problem as pre-eminently the attain- 
ment of true wisdom, the actualizing of truth in life. This 
very definition (if we may call so loose and indefinite a state- 
ment a " definition ") leads us, however, though by a more in- 
direct path, to the same postulate. For by this definition the 
ideal side of philosophy, as it were, and the departments of 
Ethics, ^Esthetics, and Philosophy of Religion are brought into 
especial prominence. But it is the philosophy of the ideal, in 
these three departments belonging to it, which most peremp- 
torily demands the postulate of a unity of life and reality as 
the " Ground " of the whole world. If philosophy do not fur- 
nish a critical examination and defence of this postulate, if it 
do not even consider how the basis of human ideals of duty, 
of beauty, and of supreme rational and self-conscious life is 
possibly or certainly to be laid in a unity of real being, it 



SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 51 

misses entirely its own peculiar problem. The practical life 
of conduct, of art, and of religious faith may exist without 
such critical examination, but not the cultivation of ethical 
and sesthetical philosophy, or of the philosophy of religion. 

Nor is it necessary for philosophy to define its problem as 
purely or chiefly practical, in order that it may have the most 
salutary and effective influence upon the life of conduct. Like 
all science, it seeks primarily the truth for the truth's sake. 
Its spirit is far enough removed, however, from that idolatrous 
worship of concrete facts and exact formulas which does not 
shrink from ruthlessly sacrificing to them, as to gods, all the 
finer and choicer ethical, aesthetical, and religious feelings of 
the sensitive soul. This is not simply because philosophy is 
always bound to remember that these feelings are themselves 
facts, and that they are no less certainly facts, and no less 
potent in influence and worthy of rational regard, although 
they do not admit of easy reduction to the terms of the math- 
ematical and physical sciences. It is rather because the very 
essence of philosophical reflection on ethical, sesthetical, and 
religious phenomena consists in regard for the ideals of duty 
and of beauty, and for that Ideal-Real which religion calls 
God. Through this process of reflection philosophy becomes 
more fully and profoundly conscious of the effort to apply and 
verify its postulate of a unity in reality for the world of 
nature and of mind, — a unity higher than any of the positive 
sciences are competent to describe. 

That conception of the nature of philosophy which regards 
it as a "possible branch of positive science," or even as a uni- 
versal science, readily defines the problem of philosophy from 
the point of view of its relation to the particular sciences. 
The task which Mr. Lewes sets for himself he defines as " the 
transformation of metaphysics by reduction to the method of 
science." l The problem of philosophy — that is, of metaphysics 
thus reduced to a science — is, then, to discard all metaphysical 

1 Problems of Life and Mind, vol. * part i. 



52 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

elements, and thereupon to handle certain scientific conceptions 
with which it is inconvenient for any of the positive sciences 
to deal. But according to Wundt's much profounder view, its 
problem is "to unite the general cognitions obtained by the 
particular sciences into a consistent system." But in this view 
also we find necessarily involved the postulate of a possible 
system, " consistent " and able to serve as a basis of union, a 
ground of unity, for the particular sciences. 

Moreover, unless we enter upon the study of philosophy 
with the dogmatic rejection of that assumption which, in un- 
critical form at least, is made by all the sciences, we must re- 
gard this consistent system of the general cognitions obtained 
by them as having its possible "Ground" in some really ex- 
istent Unity. It belongs, to be sure, to philosophy, as criti- 
cal of all assumptions and as interested in a wholly rational 
theory of knowledge, to examine thoroughly this assumption. 
Philosophical criticism may greatly change the crude form in 
which the presupposition is held by the particular sciences. 
But in the very examination it is accompanied by the presence 
and constantly feels the power of this same postulated Unity 
of all Eeality. Eeason at the bar of reason is the same rea- 
son which sits as judge. Whatever theory of cognition the 
philosopher may accept, — and in this regard it is of the very 
nature of scientific and critical philosophy to claim the free- 
dom of reason, — -he cannot understand his main problem, or 
even state it, without use of the postulate. To say this is 
the same thing as to say that, while the particular sciences 
may possibly disregard all inquiry as to the ultimate basis on 
which they individually rest, and on which reposes the con- 
nection existing between them, philosophy cannot so do. On 
the contrary, it is along this fundamental level that its pecu- 
liar inquiries lie. Its one great problem concerns the exis- 
tence and nature of this fundamental principle. 

We may then affirm in a general way that the problem of 
philosophy is to discover and comprehend a certain kind of 



SOUECES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 53 

unity. This unity involves some connection in reality of the 
principles of all being and the principles of all knowledge ; 
for philosophy deals with both. It is not merely a critical 
or positive ontology, nor is it merely a critical or dogmatic 
theory of knowledge. This unity must also serve as a rational 
basis for the principles of ethics, aesthetics, and religion. Phi- 
losophy seeks a unity, not only for the realities of thought, 
but also for the ideals of moral conduct, art, and the religious 
life. It further aims to bring the general principles of being 
and of rational knowledge into connection and harmony with 
these ethical and aesthetical ideals. That is, philosophy strives 
to find for all these principles a unity of being and life, an 
ideal Eeal, a realized Idea. In other words, philosophy im- 
plies the search, in rational confidence and hope, after some 
sort of a unity, in which all real processes may have, as it 
were, an ideal side, a side of sentient, aesthetical, and ethical 
life, and in which the fundamental forms, not only of rational 
cognition, but also of aesthetical and ethical ideals, may have 
existence in reality. 

There is, however, no such thing possible as an immediate 
knowledge of either the real or the ideal independently of those 
concrete acts and objects of particular knowledge with which 
the positive sciences deal. Each of these sciences implies the 
existence and activity of human reason, upon the basis of its 
fundamental postulates and according to its most general laws. 
But each of them also involves the gathering and sifting of 
definite material of experience ; each of them, therefore, takes 
for granted the general postulate that they are all dealing with 
reality, and proceeds to tell how particular forms of reality 
actually behave. The sciences of ethics, aesthetics, and religion 
describe further how certain great ideals — as of duty, beauty, 
and God — are formed within the mind of the individual and 
of the race. When further reflection is given to the results of 
these various branches of positive science, both physical and 
psychological, it is found that their most mature and well- 



54 SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS PROBLEM. 

verified conclusions serve to suggest still other problems, which 
are unsolved and which lie beyond the power of any form of 
science to offer for them a solution. These problems become 
the problem of philosophy. They must be pursued in depen- 
dence upon the positive sciences for the forms, as ascertained 
principles or general presuppositions of these sciences, in which 
they are, as it were, handed over to philosophy. As parts of 
the philosophical problem, however, they can neither be solved 
by the sciences, nor can they be solved by philosophical reflec- 
tion in disregard of or opposition to the sciences. They must 
be considered and solved, if at all, in such manner as to tend 
toward the formation of the sum-total of knowledge by reflec- 
tion into a harmonious system. The problems thus become 
parts of one problem, — the problem of philosophy. 

At this point we discover again the presence of the great 
postulate to which reference has already repeatedly been made. 
There is ultimate and fundamental unity of being to be as- 
sumed as the only conceivable or possible ground for a harmo- 
nious and consistent rational system of the positive sciences. 
From this point of view, then, we may say that to convert as- 
sumption into a rational conviction, to explore the nature of 
such ultimate being and its relations to the thoughts and ideals 
of reason, and so to discern and apprehend the true unity of 
all the sciences, is the problem of philosophy. 



CHAPTER III. 

RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 

NOTHING is in these days more important for the true 
conception and successful pursuit of philosophy than to 
determine precisely its relation to the particular sciences. The 
entire history of speculative thinking enforces this truth. His- 
tory reveals the suffering of philosophy from its failures, in the 
ancient and mediaeval eras, to distinguish itself from the more 
positive forms of human knowledge. It reveals also the great 
influence which modern scientific methods have already exer- 
cised, and it prophesies the yet greater influence which they 
are destined to exercise in the future, for the correction and 
improvement of philosophy. Even a measure of the strong 
contempt prevalent among devotees of physical science for so- 
called metaphysics has been a real service to the same cause. 

It is no longer possible to cultivate philosophy in virtual dis- 
regard of the conclusions reached by observers in the differ- 
ent classes of physical and psychological phenomena. The new 
physics and the new psychology both demand a hearing at the 
court which claims to have supreme and final appellate juris- 
diction. But who is sufficient to sit as judge in that court? 
Certainly not the man who has been educated amidst invincible 
ignorance of both the new physics and the new psychology. 

Yet further : the expert students of the particular sciences 
cannot avoid the enterprise of passing judgment upon the prob- 
lems which belong, in a peculiar way, to speculative thought. 
The man of the Scholastic or the strictly Hegelian development, 
in his day, felt himself competent to deduce the principles of 



56 KELATION OP PHILOSOPHY 

the positive sciences from the laws of absolute existence. And 
was it not his peculiar business to be familiar with those laws ? 
But the tables are now turned upon philosophy. Who now 
feels himself competent to pronounce with reference to phi- 
losophical secrets, — to solve problems of Freedom, God, and 
Immortal Life, and to discern the inmost being of the really 
existent, whether it be blind Force, "the Unconscious," the 
"mysterious something" which we rightly call "Matter," or 
the self-conscious Universal Reason, — unless it be the students 
of empirical physics and psychology ? 

There is danger, then, that the favor of this potent mistress 
of thought, called modern science, may become more embar- 
rassing to philosophy than her disfavor has been. Hence, in 
part, the necessity of determining more carefully the natural 
and necessary relations of the two. 

Our previous investigations enable us at once to reject cer- 
tain views as to the distinction between philosophy and the 
positive sciences. Four ways of drawing this distinction are 
enumerated by Mr. Hodgson, 1 preliminary to the statement of 
the one which he himself adopts. We agree with him in re- 
jecting them all. The line between philosophy and science 
cannot be drawn so as to assign to the former only those 
unverifiable guesses at truth which precede the correct meth- 
ods and verifiable truths of positive science (view of "English 
Positivism"). Nor can the chief or distinctive work of phi- 
losophy be held to consist in simply co-ordinating and sys- 
tematizing the many different branches into which advancing 
science differentiates itself (" Comtian Positivism "). Nor can 
we make the latter view adequate by adding, as does Mr. Lewes, 
the task of "disproving and keeping out of science all ontologi- 
cal entities." All those three ways of regarding the relation of 
philosophy and science destroy the independent existence and 
value of philosophy ; they arise from a total misconception of 
either its true problem or its correct method, or of both. But 

1 Philosophy of Reflection, i. 28 f. 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 57 

the view which maintains that philosophy, being the discovery 
of Absolute Existence, is so related to the sciences that it im- 
parts to them their scientific character, by making their prin- 
ciples deductions from the laws of this Existence (" the Hegelian 
view"), is also summarily to be dismissed. The disproof of this 
view is not more firmly embodied in the claims and achieve- 
ments of modern science than in the woful failures which it 
has occasioned to the pursuit of philosophy. 

Philosophy owes its origin and justification, in its modern 
form as a distinct discipline and pursuit, to the failure of each 
and all of the positive sciences to satisfy the most profound 
and imperative demands of human reason. 1 This failure has re- 
spect to three things, — to comprehensiveness, to certainty, and 
to ethical and aesthetical significance. The positive sciences do 
not attain, and from their very nature cannot aim at reaching, 
the ideally most comprehensive view of the world. From their 
very nature they are particular sciences. But philosophy, from 
its very nature, deals with the most general conceptions ; it 
postulates the possibility of regarding all the conclusions of the 
sciences in the light of a unity of reality ; and from this point 
of view it strives to transcend what is most particular in each 
of them, and to reach what is universal and common to them 
all. It thus offers to rational inquiry the hope of attaining a 
comprehensiveness of knowledge, for lack of which the forms 
of more concrete knowledge fail wholly to satisfy the heart 
and mind. 

The different positive sciences, as forms of science, possess a 
particular degree and kind of certainty. But they all involve a 
host of presuppositions, — of unverified conceptions, postulated 
entities and relations of entities, assumed modes of the being 
and behavior of things. Upon the basis of these presuppo- 
sitions they move onward toward the discovery of further em- 
pirical truths. It is not their business to consider the reality 

1 Compare Spir, Forschung nach der Gewissheit in der Erkenntniss der Wirk- 
lichkeit, Leipzig, 1869, p. 1 f. 



58 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

of the basis, or the grounds of certainty with which affirma- 
tions or denials can be made touching its reality and its nature. 
The "truths" of science are the uniform sequences of phe- 
nomena which have been discovered by fortunate guessing, and 
verified by application of the methods of scientific induction- 
The certainty of science is never more than a higher or lower 
degree of probability, — of probability that; if something of 
definite sort has been or has happened, then something else of 
a definite sort has been or happened, or is being or happening, 
or will be or will happen. yBut philosophy, with its claim to 
investigate the grounds of all reason, and the universal forms 
and laws of being, holds out the hope of a more nearly abso- 
lute certainty of knowledge, v/ " • •* 

The different positive sciences do not, as forms of science, 
necessarily concern themselves with the analysis, criticism, 
and justification of the ideals of reason. This is true of 
ethics, aesthetics, and the science of religion, as well as of 
physics and psychology. These pursuits also, as long as they 
concern themselves only with particular classes of phenomena, 
leave much to be desired. It is only when they cease to be 
strictly empirical sciences, and enter upon inquiry as to the 
value and existence in reality of such ideals as the Good, the 
Beautiful, and God, that they seem to attain their highest 
significance. But when they do this, they cease to remain 
within the legitimate sphere of science; they pass over, though 
it may be while retaining the same names, into the domain of 
the philosophy of the Ideal. They then seem, and truly, to the 
reflecting mind to surpass, in meaning and value, all the par- 
ticular sciences, and to gain an existence that is distinctly 
superior to the basis of scientific induction upon which they 
dependently rest. 

Help toward the fuller comprehension of the relation of 
philosophical discipline to the positive sciences may be gained 
by considering under what conditions science and philosophy 
appear as distinct stages of development in the life of the 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 59 

individual and of the race. Both are related to ordinary non- 
scientific cognition as being alike the result of the secondary 
and more elaborate forms of observation and reflection. It may 
be said, then, that progress toward the highest possible organiza- 
tion of experience into a unity of thought has three principal 
stages. The first of these is that stage which is marked by 
such a knowledge of things and events as constitutes ordinary 
experience. The second and third stages are those of science 
and philosophy. In the development, both of the individual 
reason and of that of the race, these three stages are, of course, 
not preserved apart; nor do they ever exist without direct and 
reactionary influences upon each other. Neither does all note- 
worthy construction of philosophical system wait, in the his- 
tory of the evolution of mankind, until both the popular and 
the scientific modes of cognition have reached their highest 
development ; nor is it possible to say at just what point ordi- 
nary and non-scientific knowledge passes over into the more 
strictly scientific ; or where is the precise dividing-line, in 
some of the sciences, between their scientific content, strictly 
so called, and the philosophical elements and tenets which 
they contain. 

It is nevertheless possible to distinguish, though in a some- 
what rough and uncertain way, three main stages of knowledge, 
whatever the subject-matter of the knowledge may be. To know 
that yeast raises bread, or that mother-of-vinegar converts cider 
into vinegar, and how to bring about these desirable changes, 
may be called ordinary, or non-scientific, knowledge. To know 
how the yeast and vinegar plants appear under the microscope, 
to what classes of other minute plant-life they are most closely 
allied, what are the precise thermic, chemical, and mechanical 
conditions favorable to their propagation, etc., is to have a more 
scientific knowledge of the same subject. To know that by 
exciting the nerves of sense, sensations are produced in the 
mind ; that if the sun is shining, the stars are, by a law 
governing the action of stimulus on the nervous system, 



60 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

obscured ; and that injury to the mass of the brain by wounds 
and tumors paralyzes the power of feeling or motion in the 
extremities, — this is, indeed, to be better informed than Aris- 
totle ; but for our generation it may be called quite ordinary 
knowledge. To know that the mechanical or chemical action 
of stimuli on the end-organs of sense starts a mysterious molecu- 
lar commotion in the axis-cylinders of the centripetal nerves, 
and that this commotion propagates itself, as a process of an un- 
certain character, to the central nervous mass, and there, as a 
process yet more mysterious, lays the physical basis for a special 
forth-putting of the life of conscious sensation ; to know that 
Weber and Fechner consider an increase in geometrical propor- 
tion of the strength of the stimuli necessary to an increase in 
arithmetical proportion of the strength of the resulting sensa- 
tion, but that other explorers have probably disproved the 
exactness of this alleged law ; to know that Ferrier locates 
the so-called " centre of sight " chiefly in the gyrus angularis, 
while Munk considers this gyrus the cortical region for the 
tactile sensations of the eye, and locates the chief centre 
of sight in a limited area of the occipital lobe, while Goltz 
flouts at the conclusions of both, — to know these things, 
and the grounds on which they rest, is to be scientific as re- 
spects physiological and psycho-physical questions of the most 
important kind. 

None of the foregoing species of knowledge would be called 
"philosophical" in any admissible sense of the word. There 
is, however, a science which aims to compass the most general 
laws of all life. It is called biology. It is comparatively new 
in its equipment of method, instruments of research, and masses 
of material calling for scientific treatment. It is intensely in- 
teresting, for its subject of investigation is life, — as such, and 
in all its forms. And it is as ambitious as it is interesting. It 
is no longer satisfied merely to classify and so to build up more 
and more minute and elaborate accounts of the related forms 
of life ; its principal questions are no longer morphological. 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 61 

What is it to live ; or rather, to be alive ? It is this question 
which biology essays to answer. But the inquiry after the 
origin of life, — the question, " Whence does life come ? " is re- 
garded with no less interest by this same science of biology. 
It is true that for the present there is an almost complete 
cessation from scientific attempts to answer this question. The 
hot strife over theories of biogenesis and abiogenesis has largely 
subsided; the attempt to decide by scientific experimentation 
between the two theories has been temporarily abandoned. 
So far as we know, Omne vivum e vivo, is the true statement 
of fact. Biology therefore becomes the science of the origin 
of life only in so far as it can, by study of embryology and of 
different living forms under the light of evolution, describe in 
what manner and by what stages one living being follows from 
another being also alive. 

But biology cannot forever abandon the hope of tracing the 
existing forms of life beyond the first living germs to their 
genesis from non-living matter. Meantime, it is at liberty to. 
comfort itself by pushing the origin of those much-needed first 
particles of living protoplasm out into infinite space as well as 
back into infinite time. Sir W. Thomson's hypothesis, or some 
equally unverifiable form of guessing, may in the mean time fill 
the place vacant of truly scientific information : germs of living 
things — we will conjecture — have been transported to our 
globe from some globe unknown. In the future, however, bio- 
logy will certainly return to the inquiry after the real genesis 
of life. It will then give attention to this question with vastly 
increased resources for its successful treatment, and from a far- 
advanced point of view. Suppose it were at that time to attain 
a. truly scientific knowledge of the origin of life, and were even 
able, from non-living material particles, to manufacture to order 
bits of living protoplasm : what then would be left in the realm 
of living beings for philosophy to do ? 

In answer to this question there is no escape from the admis- 
sion that, so far as what we call " life " is a series of physical 



62 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

processes and of related material forms, the whole subject in all 
its aspects must be left to science, in distinction from philosophy. 
Morphology and physiology, but both as studied under the con- 
ception of evolution, are the twin branches of biology which 
cover the whole domain of life, — of life, however, only so far as 
it consists of related physical processes and material forms. But 
life, we might go on to argue, is not all mere physical processes 
and material forms. Sentience is perhaps connected, in some 
degree, with the least highly differentiated of these vital pro- 
cesses and living forms. Upon the more highly developed 
bodily organisms a complex psychical development is depen- 
dent, — a life of soul goes with the life of organism. In the 
case of that supreme animal called man, life has become self- 
conscious, rational, free, and spiritual, — whatever meaning we 
may attach to these and similar terms. Now, if philosophy is 
forbidden to concern itself with the question of life in its physi- 
cal aspects and manifestations, may it not appropriate the 
consideration of those aspects and manifestations which are 
called spiritual? This separation of spheres between science 
and philosophy is the one proposed by certain strenuous advo- 
cates of the claims of philosophy. "Philosophy of nature," 
says Lichtenfels, " is a contradiction ; philosophy of spirit a 
pleonasm." 1 

But the modern science of life is not satisfied to leave an un- 
contested field to philosophy, even after the latter has modestly 
retreated from the consideration of all questions of morphology, 
physiology, and the physical evolution of living forms. Biology 
follows philosophy in its attempted retreat. It claims the right 
to consider, as falling under general biological laws, the phe- 
nomena of sentient, and even of rational or spiritual, life. For 
are not sentience and reason forms and processes of life ; and is 
not biology (as the very title signifies) the science of the most 
general principles of all life ? We are invited then to listen to 
discourse of a " physiology of the soul," of a " morphology of 

1 Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in die Philosophic, p. 10. 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 63 

concepts," of an " evolution of reason " from the irrational life 
of the brute, of a " development of perceptions " out of sensa- 
tion-complexes which are themselves highly elaborate " aggre- 
gations " and " agglutinations " of simple sensation-elements, 
which are in turn the subjective correlates of undifferentiated 
nervous shocks. In fact, a scientific biology is ambitious (and 
shall we say impudent ?) enough to claim that psychology is 
only a dependent branch of its own native stock. 

It is plain from the foregoing considerations that no valid 
distinction between science and philosophy can be based upon 
the present limitations of success in the attempt to reduce to 
scientific form any special group of phenomena. We cannot 
assign the inquiry into the forms and laws of actual life to 
science, and the speculative determination of the genesis of life 
to philosophy. Nor can we say that the nature, laws, and 
genesis of sentient, rational, and self-conscious life — it being 
withdrawn from the domain of science — are the peculiar prop- 
erty of philosophy. 

There are sciences which lawfully treat, with more or less 
strictly scientific methods, the various classes of the phenomena 
of sentient and rational life. Among them are psychology (in 
the narrower sense of the word), psycho-physics, ethics, and 
sociology. They may be somewhat imperfectly grouped to- 
gether and called the psychological sciences, or " psychology," 
in the more general sense of the word. The relations which 
the science of general psychology sustains to philosophy are 
so peculiar and so important that to distinguish clearly and 
sharply between the two is not easy. One important depart- 
ment of philosophy is called rational psychology, or the phi- 
losophy of mind. Other departments are called ethics, aesthetics, 
and the philosophy of religion. But there is a science of ethics 
as well as a science of theology and of comparative religions ; 
there is also perhaps a science of aesthetics. If then it is a 
" pleonasm " to speak of the philosophy of spirit, how shall we 
distinguish between philosophy and the psychological sciences, 



64 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

even after it has been admitted that it is a " contradiction " 
to speak of the philosophy of nature? 

We will not for a moment admit that philosophy has no 
place or rights in the domain of physical phenomena. It is 
no more a contradiction to speak of the " philosophy of nature " 
than it is a pleonasm to speak of the "philosophy of spirit." 
We must rather speak of the philosophy of nature and the 
philosophy of spirit as the two branches of the great depart- 
ment of metaphysics in philosophy, — and this without either 
contradiction or pleonasm. To illustrate and enforce the possi- 
bility of such a distinction between science and philosophy as 
shall secure the rights of both in the domain of both matter 
and mind, it will be helpful subsequently to recur to the case 
of biology. This case affords in some respects the best possi- 
ble illustration, because biology is the crowning general science 
of physical phenomena ; because, also, it has such peculiar and 
important relations to the other great groups of phenomena 
with which the psychological sciences deal. 

The distinction between " science " and such ordinary knowl- 
edge as we should hesitate to dignify by this term cannot — 
as we have seen — be drawn by a hard and fixed line. This 
fact has important bearings upon the attempt to distinguish 
between science and philosophy. The observations and induc- 
tions of the average man have different degrees of approach to 
the more strictly scientific method and to scientific accuracy. 
The physical and natural sciences are justly proud of the won- 
derful apparatus, due to the advances in telescopy, microscopy, 
photography, chemical analysis, etc., which they are able to use 
in the observation and discrimination of related phenomena. 
But not a few of their most important discoveries have been 
made by observers who had at command little more than the 
ordinary means of observation. The inductions of science, too, 
are supposed to be clearly superior to those of common life, 
not only because of their use of the superior means of obser- 
vation which science possesses, but also because the successive 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 65 

steps of induction are much more skilfully prepared and care- 
fully guarded. It would be difficult, however, to say just what 
amount of the rules of induction — agreement, difference, and 
concomitant variation — is needed in each case in order to im- 
part to the conclusions reached, the right to be called " scien- 
tific." And there are subjects where we may (whether rightly 
or wrongly, we will not say) still prefer the declarations and 
predictions of men of so-called non-scientific experience to 
those of professed scientific experts. Not a few pleasure- 
seekers, for example, take counsel of the weather-wise farmer 
or sailor with more confidence than of their morning newspaper. 
Furthermore, when we ask the students of science themselves 
to name the distinguishing marks of that kind of knowledge 
to which they lay special claim, we do not receive a wholly 
unequivocal and satisfactory answer. The feeling of this ina- 
bility it doubtless was which led Professor Huxley to define 
science as " organized common-sense." If we were to gather 
Mr. Herbert Spencer's conception of the nature of science from 
his essay on " The Classification of the Sciences," we should say 
that he regards it as the " interpretation" either " analytical " 
or " synthetical" of the different principal groups of similar phe- 
nomena. But Mr. Spencer apparently does not give us any rule 
for telling precisely how much of " interpretation " is necessary 
to the existence of " science," as distinguished from ordinary 
non-scientific cognition. At the same time, no one holds more 
firmly than he to a distinct place for philosophy as a sphere 
or kind of interpretation beyond that of science. Science, Mr. 
Spencer regards as " partially unified knowledge ; " but " phi- 
losophy is completely unified knowledge." J That " interpre- 
tation " of phenomena which seeks the complete unification of 
knowledge is doubtless philosophy. But since all attempts 
at philosophy are only "partially" successful, the distinction 
between science and philosophy becomes in its turn a matter 
of degree. 

1 First Principles, p. 539. 
5 



66 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

Considered with reference to its object of pursuit, Helmholtz 1 
defines science to be " the knowledge how, at different times, 
under the same conditions, the same results are brought about." 
Defining more loosely, and yet from the same point of view, 
Professor Tait declares : " The object of all pure physical sci- 
ence is to endeavor to grasp more and more perfectly the 
nature and laws of the external world." And Helmholtz 
expands his conception of science when he proceeds to say : 
" Our desire to comprehend natural phenomena . . . thus takes 
another form of expression, — that is, we have to seek out 
the forces which are the causes of the phenomena." 

In accordance with the spirit of the foregoing definitions and 
of the entire body of scientific investigation, we describe the 
work of modern science as follows : It is the systematizing of 
experience, by classifying the different like groups of pheno- 
mena through exact and comprehensive observation, and by 
explaining them through the discovery and verification of the 
existing uniform relations. Its formula is : If this happens, 
that will happen ; or if this has happened, that has also hap- 
pened, — everywhere and every time. 

All knowledge implies the progressive systematizing of ex- 
perience ; this is as true of that which is esteemed ordinary 
knowledge as of that which is praised for its highly scientific 
character. Indeed, it might be said that the growth of expe- 
rience itself is but a progressive formation of system amongst 
the different elements and individual items of experience. Sci- 
ence is superior to the unscientific growth of knowledge, in 
respect both of the accuracy and extent of its observations, 
and of the discovery and verification of so-called forces and laws. 
Its observations are rendered more accurate by the use of spe- 
cial means of observation, — telescope, microscope, and all the 
improved means of making physical measurements and calcula- 
tions, — in the hands of trained and expert observers. Its expla- 
nations far surpass those of the men of ordinary knowledge, 
1 Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects, pp. 370 f. and 393 f. 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 67 

because they consist in the application of a well-compacted 
body of acknowledged facts and laws to the discovery of new 
facts ; and either to the further verification of forces and laws 
already known, or to the establishment of new knowledge of 
forces and laws. Thus understood, however, science differs from 
ordinary non- scientific knowledge in degree rather than in kind 
of knowledge. 

But thus understood, science is invested on either hand by 
knowledge, or rather by a potentiality — we will say — of 
knowledge, from which it differs in kind as well as in degree. 
On the one hand, it assumes (oftentimes with a naivete as great 
as that which characterizes the men of only ordinary experi- 
ence) certain conceptions, forms of general judgment, or other 
principles, which it does not feel itself bound or competent 
critically to examine. Or if it does subject these postulates 
of all its procedure to critical examination, it concerns itself 
only with the shape which they must take as tenable scientific 
hypotheses. It regards the postulates as instruments for the 
successful treatment of phenomena by the methods of classi- 
fication and discovery of so-called laws or uniform relations. 
But if science ventures upon a discussion of the applicability 
in reality of these postulates, or of the relation they sustain 
in reality to the unity of the world and of all experience, it 
abandons its own peculiar sphere ; for such discussion is not 
scientific, and does not admit of scientific proof or disproof, in 
the stricter meaning of these words. Such discussion is meta- 
physics, — that is, a branch of philosophy. And this is equally 
true whether it be metaphysics of mathematics, or of physics, 
or — again — of psychology. 

On the other hand of the legitimate sphere of scientific re- 
search stands another class of inquiries which are its limits, and 
at the same time the boundaries of philosophy. These are the 
inquiries into the relations of the different groups of phenom- 
ena, with which the particular sciences deal, to the Ideals of 
reason, and to the Unity of Beality in which these Ideals are 



68 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

held by philosophy to have their ground. The truth of science 
is fact and law, — the latter being understood as the verified 
uniform concomitances and sequences of facts. How these can 
have, or whether they do have, the value which reason attaches 
to what is true (in the philosophical sense of the word), beauti- 
ful, and morally good, science does not inquire. Or if it does 
enter upon this inquiry, it passes beyond the limits of the par- 
ticular sciences, and enters the proper domain of the philosophy 
of the Ideal. It becomes, no longer science, but philosophical 
ethics or aesthetics, or the philosophy of religion. 

The general distinction which has just been made we will 
now apply to biology ; and since the foregoing considerations 
have had particular reference to the relation of philosophy and 
the physical and natural sciences, we will now consider biol- 
ogy as only one of these sciences. What then, we may ask, 
remains in the sphere of physical life for philosophy to con- 
sider, if biology as a science is entitled to claim as its own the 
discovery and verification of the most general laws, not only of 
the evolution, but also of the genesis, of all life ? There re- 
mains for philosophy, we reply, no less than the consideration 
of the most interesting, difficult, and in some regards most im- 
portant, of all the inquiries touching the general subject-matter 
of biology. 

What is the significance, in reality, of life ? Is it to be found 
in the supreme form of life, in the self-conscious striving, the 
thinking and planning, the joy and suffering, of rational mind ; 
or in an unconscious principle called Matter, Absolute Ego, 
Will, or Will conjoined with Idea and yet not conscious of itself ? 

What significance in reality, moreover, shall we attach to the 
development of living forms ? Biological science deals with the 
evolution of life in the individual, the species, the family, — in 
all interconnected forms of life. But with its aid alone the law 
of evolution can never attain to anything more than the place 
of a working hypothesis, adapted to the systematizing of the 
groups of observed or inferred phenomena. Is this great law 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 69 

itself valid in Keality ; or is it good for use only as a seeming 
(Schein) ? May we speak of the Absolute (of God) as in a 
process of becoming ? Or if not, in what relation do the law 
of evolution and the living forms evolved stand to the supreme 
Eeality we try to express by that word ? What, further, do we 
mean when we proclaim, in the name of biological science, the 
goodness of the result attained through the struggle of species, 
as higher and yet higher forms, leading up to self-conscious ra- 
tional life, appear to view ? What is this standard by which 
we attempt to difference ideally the living forms and arrange 
them in series, with man at their head ? Is it a matter simply 
of complexity of mechanical contrivances and processes, leaving 
all conscious life out of the account ? Or is it a matter of more 
or less in the gross amount of sensuous or other forms of 
happiness and misery ? Or, finally, is it not also a matter of 
approximation to certain ideals of reason, to the beautiful and 
the morally good ? . And what reality does our standard of 
good possess; or is the standard itself mere seeming good 
(Scheingut) ? 

Now, it cannot be claimed that the consideration of questions 
such as the foregoing is not in a large measure distinct from 
strictly scientific inquiry after the physical relations under 
which the genesis and evolution of particular living forms 
take place. This distinction would, moreover, continue to 
hold if biology were a much more highly developed physical 
science than it can at present pretend to be. Nay, more : the 
distinction would not cease to be important if biology had fin- 
ished all the work that, as an exact science (?), it can ever hope 
to finish. If the description of all the observed forms of life 
were, in all their stages, made complete, and if the genesis and 
interrelated growth of these forms were so mastered that all the 
facts could be brought under general laws, the services of bio- 
logical science to philosophy would be greatly enlarged. But 
the peculiar task of philosophy with reference to the problems 
of life would not be accomplished. Indeed, it would not neces- 



70 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

sarily be even rightly begun. For the consideration of the re- 
lation in which all these living forms, with the generalized 
statements of fact respecting their physical genesis and devel- 
opment, stand to the world's Unity in Eeality, and to the ideals 
of reason, — the beautiful, the morally good, and that supreme 
object of religious adoration whom faith calls God, — would 
still remain untouched. Such consideration is for philosophy 
to attempt. 

It may be maintained that philosophy can answer none of 
the foregoing questions, or that it can cope with only a few 
of them, and with these only with a partial success. So it 
may be maintained (and truthfully) that biology can at present 
give a strictly scientific solution to almost none of its own more 
important problems, and that its most strenuous efforts to bring 
the phenomena of life under the law of the conservation and 
correlation of energy, and under the form of a general mechan- 
ical theory, have resulted only in unverifiable guessing. But 
such a claim does not work the destruction of the science of 
biology so-called ; nor does it prevent our setting apart for its 
researches, (albeit so difficult, and restricted in exact results) a 
distinctive sphere. In like manner, the claim that philosophy 
has achieved small success in solving the problems assigned 
to it, does not destroy its claim to a distinctive work within a 
somewhat definitively recognized sphere. Perhaps if our knowl- 
edge of the principles of all life becomes more scientific, the phi- 
losophical consideration of these principles will become more 
satisfactory to biologists themselves. Certainly, at present, 
neither the student of biological science, nor the thinker who 
would give to the phenomena of life a philosophical treatment, 
is entitled to despise the work of the other. 

Nor can it be maintained that the special form of biological 
inquiries, with which philosophy attempts to deal, is not 
worthy of consideration. So narrow an interest in the phe- 
nomena of life would be as unbecoming to science as to 
philosophy. 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 71 

Besides the special philosophical problems which attach 
themselves to biology as a positive science, there are others 
which are common to it and to the other physical sciences. 
The relation of biology to all these sciences is such that it 
founds itself upon them all. It is the crowning science among 
the system of sciences, — pre-eminently complex, sensitive, 
and dependent, and yet supremely interesting on account of 
its connections with practical and philosophical, as well as 
strictly scientific problems. Its springs and currents of dis- 
covery and speculation swarm with postulated physical en- 
tities, forces, and laws, of a kind to promote a large extension 
of metaphysical theory. 

The modern science of biology is not chiefly a system of 
classifications. Besides morphology, it depends upon histo- 
logy, embryology, and physiology ; and it receives and appro- 
priates the results of all three of these sciences as studied 
in the light of the theory of evolution. But each of these 
sciences makes use of microscopy and of the general mechan- 
ical theory; especially does each rely upon the conclusions 
and methods of chemistry and molecular physics. In accept- 
ing these methods and conclusions, biology accepts the pos- 
tulated entities, forces, and laws which enter into them all. 
It explains the phenomena of life by reference to their causes 
in invisible and intangible beings of a material sort, called 
" atoms " and " molecules ; " and between these beings it as- 
sumes or demonstrates relations of attraction and repulsion, 
of changing position or motion, of affinity and synthesis or 
its contrary, and the like. And since a general theory of 
molecular physics best explains the likenesses and unlike- 
nesses in the groups of phenomena, which refers them to the 
reciprocal influence of the elementary beings {i. e., of the 
atoms and molecules), such theory ascribes to these beings 
" natures " according to which they are arranged into hypotheti- 
cal kinds, either like or unlike. It distinguishes at present 
more than sixty of such kinds. The natures of these beings 



72 EELATION OP PHILOSOPHY 

are, moreover, said to be determined by the forces inherent in 
them ; these forces, science declares, may nevertheless be modi- 
fications of one and the same force. Possibly the number of 
entities needed for the explanation of the phenomena may be 
found to be more than is now thought requisite ; or — what 
seems rather to be desired, and likelier to turn out true — 
the present number may ultimately be greatly reduced. 

All observed changes in biological phenomena are therefore 
referred, for their ultimate explanation, to occult changes in 
the invisible realm of molecular entities, forces, and laws. 
The science of the genesis and growth of living forms regards 
them thus. Life and death are alike in this respect, that 
they both consist of observed changes, which are to be referred 
for their explanation to the occult influence of the same mo- 
lecular beings, with their wonderful equipment of related 
forces, acting under law. Thermic, electric, chemical, and 
other mechanical energies have their bearing on the phe- 
nomena of life through the same invisible world of atoms 
with their ceaseless changes of relation in space. 

How does the science of biology come into possession of 
this equipment of mysterious entities and forces ? What is 
the nature of the knowledge it has lawfully gained of atoms 
and molecules, original natures of atoms, forces of molecular 
attraction and repulsion; also of occult causes, and of the 
hypothesis of universally regnant law ? It borrows this knowl- 
edge from the other physical sciences on which it depends. 
What, furthermore, have the sciences on which biology de- 
pends to do with the same metaphysical pre-suppositions ? 
Much, if the pre-suppositions are used simply as working hy- 
potheses; nothing, if they require to be validated as belonging 
to the world of reality. 

To the sciences, in so far as they are merely scientific, all 
consideration of the world of entities, forces, and causes has 
only the value of good or bad working hypotheses. To them 
the existence and nature of the atom is an hypothesis, valu- 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 73 

able according as it does, or does not, serve to explain the 
phenomena by aiding the discovery and verification of their 
uniform concomitances and sequences. To them the extra- 
mental reality of the causes and forces — thought of as exist- 
ing " in " the atoms, or " between " them, or presiding " over " 
them — is of no immediate concern. For to them causes and 
forces also are only hypotheses, useful in the classification, and 
reduction to uniform relations, of the phenomena. 

The sciences on which biology more immediately depends 
themselves rest on a lower and broader basis of physical 
science. Along the general level of this basis, although at 
somewhat different relative heights, are such sciences as as- 
tronomy, geology, meteorology, and especially physics, in the 
more limited meaning of the word. Lower still lies mechanics, 
as the most general science of the action of forces in the pro- 
duction of motion or of strain. This science, as Professor Tait 
tells us in the last edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," 
" treats of the action of Force upon Matter ; " but is more cor- 
rectly (is this because of the hope thus to escape from the 
metaphysical implications of words like "force" and "action," 
etc. ?) " the Science of Matter and Motion, or of Matter and 
Energy." Matter, Motion, and Energy, — these are words 
burdened with the survivals of centuries of metaphysical 
doctrine, and utterly and forever incapable of being wholly 
cleared of a metaphysical investment and reference. 

What, we might ask, is this " Matter " with which it is the 
business of the science of mechanics especially to deal ? Is it 
the only matter which is concretely and definitively known ; 
namely, matter subjective, the synthesis in experience of local- 
ized sensation-complexes, of remembered images of sensation- 
complexes, of inferences from such images, and of the naive 
metaphysical postulate of an unknown objective ground for 
the phenomena ? This can scarcely be so, for we are told in 
this connection that a better name for mechanics would be 
abstract dynamics, and that the science is what is called 



74 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

"pure." Is then the "matter" of which mechanics treats a 
concept merely, albeit a concept of the very highest form of 
generalization, and equivalent perhaps to the " mysterious some- 
thing" by which all this (the processes and evolution called 
" physical ") is accomplished ? Now, the type of this matter 
with which mechanics deals is a single particle, without nature, 
character, instinct, will, or idea. But, in reality, where exists 
any such particle ? In reality, of course, each particle is an 
atom, or a congeries of atoms, full of manifold potentialities and 
forms of energy, found at the beginning, and always known, 
only in the most complicated processes of changing relations 
toward other like or unlike particles. 

Let not mechanics, that science so " pure " and " abstract," 
think to escape the need of help from philosophy by substi- 
tuting for the metaphysical term " force " such words as " mo- 
tion " and " energy." For what are we to understand by the 
motion of which it is the science, if it be aught more than a par- 
ticular time-series of differently localized sensation-complexes, 
— as when a shooting-star passes over the field of my vision, 
or a fly crawls over the skin of my cheek or hand ? Is there 
motion, in reality ? Can there be motion without some reality 
to Space, in which, as we say, motion takes place ; or without 
some reality to Time, within which (in another meaning of the 
word " within ") motion occurs ? Can there be motion without 
some real being to move ? What is the relation in which all 
motion stands to the ultimate Eeality, after whose nature phi- 
losophy seeks ? Does this Eeality itself change ; and how can 
it be the ground of change of relations in space among those 
elements of material kind whose existence physical science 
assumes as its working hypothesis? These are among the 
problems handed over, as it were, to philosophy from the naive 
and uninstructed presuppositions with which this so-called 
science of motion deals. 

It has been fashionable for some time past to reject the word 
" force " from the discussions of the exact sciences, and to sub- 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 75 

s tit ute for it the word " energy." To this no objection can be 
raised if the end desired be to obtain and employ a term, in a 
hypothetical way, which shall be better capable of fulfilling the 
requirements of exact science. It would be vain, however, to 
hope by a change of words to free physical science from its 
natural dependence on reason, or from its obligations to that 
higher use of reason at which philosophy aims. If we adopt 
the new word, all the old philosophical problems at once recur, 
and attach themselves with equal persistence to it. What is 
this " energy," whose conservation and correlation is a postulate 
of all modern physical science, and with the most general laws 
of which, as productive of motion, it is the business of " ab- 
stract dynamics " to deal ? Let a colleague of Professor Tait 
in the same literary work make answer. "Energy," says Mr. 
William Garnett, " may be defined as the power of doing work." 
But in this definition the metaphysical conception is returned 
to philosophy for its consideration anew. For what is "power," 
potential or kinetic, apart from all implication of force ? What 
also is it " to do," and " to do work," unless the influence of one 
part of real being on another, and the occurrence of reciprocally 
dependent changes in reality, and the reality of some unity in 
causal relations, be somehow implied. 

Undoubtedly it would not do to affirm that mechanics 
cannot exist and grow, as an exact and pure science, without 
consciously resting on some basis of philosophical doctrine, 
more or less intelligently adopted. The contrary is true. As 
pure science, and unmixed with definite metaphysical doctrine, 
it need not consider the foregoing fundamental problems at all. 
It is meant rather to affirm that mechanics, like every form 
of physical or natural science into which mechanics enters, 
actually involves certain assumptions, the criticism and sys- 
tematizing of which it is the business of philosophy to un- 
dertake. When, then, mechanics and the other mechanical 
sciences employ words like " Matter," " Motion," and " Energy " 
or " Force," they are to be understood as legitimately extending 



76 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

the field of science by use of certain universal hypotheses. 
But the student of mechanics, as a student of science merely, 
can go no farther than to say, if by matter, motion, and force 
we mean thus and so, then, under certain circumstances (also — 
it is likely — wholly hypothetical), the uniform concomitances 
and sequences of phenomena will be of the following order 
and kind. Whenever the student of science enters upon the 
discussion of the nature and validity, in reality, of the hypo- 
theses he feels compelled to make, he departs from the sphere 
of science strictly so called. He becomes a metaphysician, a 
philosopher in one of the most abstruse and difficult depart- 
ments of philosophy. He is not by any means necessarily 
saved by his scientific training and resources from being a bad 
metaphysician, although within the sphere of scientific hypo- 
theses. He is not rendered able to extricate himself, or his 
science, from need of the helping right-hand of philosophy. 

All the abstract and pure sciences, like mechanics, as sciences, 
have only the value of a consistent arrangement of conceptions 
under a number of most general hypotheses. The validity which 
they seem in themselves to have is due to their consistency. 
Nor is even the consistency, which these sciences are obliged 
to maintain, as necessary to their successful prosecution, of the 
highest kind. It is not necessary, for example, that the con- 
ception of Space which is held by the student of mechanics 
should be consistent with the truths of psychological develop- 
ment, or with the highest doctrine of that unity which belongs 
to the world of reality. The student of mechanics may adopt 
the crudest realism ; he may even regard space as itself an ex- 
istent entity, an indefinitely spread-out actuality ; he may feel 
unable to imagine the Infinite as independent of the relations 
and limitations of space. He may speak of energy as though 
it were something which could actually be stored up, and passed 
over from one atom or mass to another. He may make his 
atoms into gods, and bow down and worship them, while deny- 
ing all power in philosophy or theology to bring to man the 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 77 

knowledge of God, the Father Almighty. Such crudities and 
vagaries of philosophical thought would not, however, of neces- 
sity injure the cogency or completeness of his reasoning in the 
sphere of his science. The highest success here is possible, if 
only the few conceptions to be systematized be kept consistent 
with one another, under the conditions imposed by the funda- 
mental hypotheses. 

Much of what has already been said concerning the relation 
of mechanics to philosophy is also true of pure mathematics. 
The latter science has sometimes been called distinctively 
metaphysical. The designation is to a certain extent correct, 
because the entities and ratiocinative processes of mathematics, 
like those of metaphysics, appear before the mind as indepen- 
dent of verification from concrete and individual experiences. 
But in the course of thought we are now following, mathemat- 
ics, of all the sciences, stands most remote from metaphysics. 
It involves comparatively few of those assumptions touching 
the existence and nature of known reality with which meta- 
physics is concerned. "We are reminded, however, that an an- 
cient system of philosophy made number of the very essence of 
reality. Great is the power of this same conception of number 
in the modern mechanical theory of the world ; great also in 
respect to the questions it opens before us as to the possibility 
— for example — ■ of space of n dimensions, and as regards the 
application of all arithmetical and geometrical formulae to the 
ultimate being of things. And here the problems of mathe- 
matics and metaphysics begin to coincide at so many points 
that the lines of the movement of the two seem to become 
identical. 

Is the Absolute a unity, or in fact can we apply at all the 
conceptions and relations of number to the ultimate Being we 
designate by that word ? And if the Absolute is One, how 
shall we conceive of the nature of that unity which the Abso- 
lute has or is ? What kind of unity do the elements of material 
reality, the so-called atoms, have ? How shall we, by indefinite 



78 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

subdivisions into minuter parts, reach a real physical unity ? 
How, indeed, can there be Unity in consistency with the vari- 
ety of the really Existent ? What bond in idea or actuality 
ties the infinite multiplicity of things and atoms into the one- 
ness of being which the real world has? 

The answer to such questions as the foregoing may be far 
and difficult to seek, or even impossible to find. But the ques- 
tions themselves spring forth with ever-new freshness and 
power from the human reason. They are not proposed as the 
useless puzzles of a few disturbed brains. They perpetually 
recur along the path of scientific and rational evolution. They 
ask themselves, as it were, and keep insisting upon considera- 
tion, although the complete answer to them has never yet been 
found. Mathematics, as a science pure or applied, cannot en- 
tertain, not to say answer them. They do not fall within the 
legitimate sphere of any of the physical and natural sciences. 
Yet these sciences all contain the fundamental conceptions, the 
reflective analysis and the attempted synthesis of which give 
to philosophy some of its hardest problems. 

It is not simply for the detection and criticism of their 
presuppositions, both general and special, that the physical 
sciences are dependent upon philosophical analysis ; they are 
also dependent upon synthetic philosophy for certain su- 
preme generalizations which may be given to the highest 
principles that have been discovered empirically. And, in 
turn, philosophy is dependent upon the particular sciences 
for its own subject-matter in the form of their highest scien- 
tific generalizations. All the more comprehensive results of 
induction, as they are afforded by these sciences, are contribu- 
tions to the material of philosophy. The very life and growth 
of philosophy as a scientific system depends upon its appropria- 
tion of this material. Only in this way can the results of 
speculative reflection keep constantly in touch with concrete 
and living realities. Only in this way can philosophy be saved 
from the fate of deceiving itself with the synthesis of barren 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 79 

abstractions, — mere fragments of incomplete analysis, mingled 
with conjectural entities and forces, and bound together into 
a totality that has only the consistency and unity of pleasant 
dreams. 

The attitude of direct dependence in which philosophy stands 
toward the positive sciences might be illustrated by many ex- 
amples. Indeed, the entire history of modern philosophy does 
but afford a series of illustrations. The Hegelian system, as 
left by its founder, fell into disfavor, not more because of the 
general defectiveness of the dialectical method and the inability 
of its conclusions to satisfy the needs of the heart, than through 
the contempt which the positive sciences threw upon its man- 
ner of treating the choicest results of their inductions. Every 
new attempt at philosophical system has first of all to reckon 
with the positive sciences. If it passes by their discoveries in 
silence, the present age is sure to consider it inadequate and 
insufficiently founded. If it contradicts these discoveries, it is 
itself immediately subjected to so great contempt as not even 
to be thought worthy of argument. If it seems to show higher 
speculative reasons for the validity of scientific discoveries, or 
illustrates them by pointing out new and valuable relations in 
which they stand to the Ideals of Reason and to the Ultimate 
Being of the world, it wins, so far forth, some claims to recog- 
nition and to respect at the hands of science. Nor do we for 
a moment think of complaining of all this. On the contrary, 
this is precisely as it should be. There can be no philosophy 
of nature which is not securely founded upon the principles 
established by the inductive science of nature. There is no 
philosophy of mind which is not dependent for its material 
upon the empirical pursuit of the psychological sciences. The 
favor shown to those speculative thinkers who give plain signs 
of the endeavor to bring their philosophical conclusions at 
every possible point of contact to the test of the widest and 
most certain generalizations of the positive sciences, is thus 
explained. It is largely for this reason that Herbert Spencer, 



80 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

Von Hartmann, and other writers on philosophy, who avowedly 
build their synthesis on an inductive basis, attract so large a 
following among the students of these sciences. 

The law of the conservation and correlation of energy, and 
the various laws which enter into the general theory of evolu- 
tion, form conspicuous instances at present of the truth which 
has just been stated. The philosophy of nature and every 
other department of philosophy feels the influence of these 
vast but vague scientific generalizations. Who would venture 
to put forth a system of philosophy or to deal freely with phi- 
losophical problems, and leave these generalizations out of the 
account ? No philosophy can become current that neglects 
them. Indeed, the greater danger to speculative thinking 
arises just now from a too hasty and complete acceptance of 
these supreme working hypotheses of all natural science, rather 
than from a tendency to treat them with disrespect or neglect. 
And what is true of such supreme principles, in so many and 
important regards, is true in fewer and less important regards 
of all the minor generalizations of the natural sciences. 

Science is knowledge, as the very word of course signifies. 
It is knowledge of perception and inference, — knowledge ren- 
dered comprehensive and exact by special methods, and ren- 
dered systematic and rational by extension to a vast multitude 
of cases under general laws. But as knowledge, science is 
ever dependent upon the activity and the constitution of the 
knowing mind. Perception and inference are processes of 
knowledge, the nature, genesis, and evolution of which may be 
made the subjects of scientific research. The comprehensive 
term for the science resulting from this kind of research is 
" psychology." As thus employed, the term includes also the 
empirical pursuit of logic, ethics, and aesthetics. Concepts, 
judgments, and inductive and deductive argument are all 
processes of the psychological kind ; the description and ex- 
planation of the genesis, nature, and development of logical 
processes and logical products belong to the science of psy- 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES- 81 

chology. Nor is the case at all essentially different if the con- 
cepts, judgments, and arguments are of duty or of beauty ; 
that is, if they belong to the so-called science of ethics or of 
aesthetics. As positive sciences, ethics and aesthetics, as well as 
logic, are only branches of psychology. 

But processes of knowledge or phenomena of cognition do 
not exhaust the variety of the modes of behavior which we at- 
tribute to the principle called " soul " or " mind." Psychical 
life shows a richness of phenomena too great to be grouped 
under the one rubric of ideation. Phenomena of feeling, desire, 
volition, also require scientific treatment ; the exact classifica- 
tion and explanation, by tracing their genesis and development, 
of these phenomena also belong to psychology. 

"Within the very penetralia of psychological science, as it 
were, arise the forms with whose more intimate and profound 
acquaintance philosophy is specifically concerned. The effort 
to explain the phenomena of psychical life, leads at once to the 
detection of certain constitutional mental modes (the so-called 
" categories ") that, in their native aspect, lay claim to a uni- 
versal significance and validity. Among these phenomena are 
certain of a peculiarly shadowy and evanescent sort ; but they 
seem to testify to the presence and exciting influence upon the 
emotions and volitions of supreme ideals. These are the ideals 
of duty, of beauty, and of the One whom men call God. 

In natural as well as in developed and scientifically reflective 
self-consciousness, there emerges a persistent diremption of the 
complexes of psychical life. There is a distinction established 
which seems, as regards its logical value and significance, to lie 
at the basis of all distinguishing activity. There comes to be 
recognized the " Ego " (/), as the subject of all the states, and 
the states which are all alike to be called mine. Still later in 
the development of mind, whether naively or with the intelli- 
gence of the trained psychologist, I come to speak of my body, 
and of the world that is not me, in contrast to which / am as 
thinking, feeling, willing mind. 

6 



82 RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

Who does not recognize in such considerations as these the 
call of introspective and experimental psychology upon phi- 
losophy for its help ? Further reflection upon these consid- 
erations — reflection of the more distinctively philosophical 
order — leads to the development of several departments of 
philosophical discipline. Such departments are the theory 
of knowledge and theoretical psychology, or the philosophy of 
mind. By combination of similar material with material drawn 
from positive sciences other than the strictly psychological, the 
philosophy of ethics, of aesthetics, and of religion arise. All 
these branches of philosophy are so closely intertwined with 
different branches of psychology, or rather they seem so to 
spring forth from one root in psychological inquiry, that 
their treatment apart becomes a matter of peculiar difficulty. 
Not a few have, therefore, either explicitly admitted or in 
practice implied that psychology and philosophy cannot be 
distinguished. 

The relations of psychological science to philosophical dis- 
cipline are so important as to demand a separate detailed 
treatment. It is enough at present to insist that the same 
characteristic traits of philosophy distinguish it from the psy- 
chological and the physical sciences. Psychology, as a science 
in the widest legitimate use of the term, is concerned only with 
the classification of psychical phenomena and with their ex- 
planation through the discovery and verifying of the uniform 
relations existing among the psychical phenomena, and be- 
tween the psychical and certain physical phenomena. But the 
psychological sciences, as well as the physical, have a body of 
principles, presupposed or ascertained, with the systematizing 
of which in their relation to ultimate Eeality philosophy must 
deal. The presuppositions are to be discerned and handled 
with that free, reflective analysis which characterizes philo- 
sophical method. The discovered principles of psychological 
science afford philosophy the material of synthesis for which 
it is dependent upon the positive sciences. 



TO THE PARTICULAR SCIENCES. 83 

It is now obvious that the relation which, so far as material 
for systematic treatment is concerned, exists between philos- 
ophy and the particular sciences, is precisely that which was 
provided for in the definition of philosophy. Philosophy is the 
rational system of the principles presupposed or ascertained by 
the particular sciences. But philosophy regards all these prin- 
ciples from its own point of view, and with its peculiar final 
purpose bearing upon them all. It endeavors to reduce them 
to system, — by considering them all in their relation to a 
Unity of ultimate Eeality. 



84 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 



CHAPTER IV. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 



THAT a peculiar relation exists between the science of mind 
and the conclusions of philosophical study, may be argued 
from the nature of both and from the history of their develop- 
ment. Some difficulty has, indeed, always been experienced 
in clearly distinguishing certain branches of philosophy from 
the more closely correlated forms of the positive sciences of 
nature. In the practice of experts themselves metaphysics has 
hitherto mingled freely with mechanics, physics, chemistry, and 
biology. But we have seen that these and similar empirical or 
more nearly " pure " departments of human knowledge retain 
their strictly scientific character only so long as they confine 
their aims to the classification of phenomena, and to explana- 
tion by the discovery and verification of uniform relations be- 
tween phenomena. All the particular sciences, however, involve 
certain principles, which are either presupposed by them or else 
are the highest generalizations reached in the course of their 
development. The ultimate source and validity in reality of the 
presuppositions is not a matter for scientific inquiry. The gen- 
eralizations do not require to be validated in reality, or con- 
nected with generalizations of other sciences in the unity of a 
rational system, by the particular sciences that make them. 
These limitations by which their pursuits are lawfully bound, 
and the need of subjecting their principles to a more pene- 
trating analysis and a higher rational synthesis, are now gen- 
erally recognized by the most thoughtful and candid students 
of physical science. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 85 

But the case between psychology and philosophy is not pre- 
cisely the same ; nor is it so clear, whether it be viewed in the 
light of history, or of a satisfactory division of the fields of sci- 
entific and philosophical inquiry. From time immemorial, but 
especially since Descartes, the analysis of consciousness and 
the statement of conclusions based upon this analysis have 
been largely dominated by metaphysical points of view. With 
English authors, since Locke and until the present generation, 
psychology has controlled and absorbed philosophy. In Eng- 
land, indeed, philosophy has scarcely existed otherwise than in 
the form of a mixture of empirical and metaphysical observa- 
tions — interesting, stimulating, yet perplexing — that have 
rambled over the fields of a descriptive science of related states 
of consciousness, philosophical theory of knowledge, ontology of 
mind, philosophy of ethics, and theology. Recently, however, 
the empirical science of psychology has striven, with commend- 
able success, to establish for itself an independent existence. 
The philosophy of religion has been more clearly distinguished 
from dogmatic and biblical theology ; and moral philosophy, 
properly so-called, has recognized many of its points of contact 
and of contrast with the science of ethical phenomena. A still 
more vigorous and intelligent development of the different con- 
nected branches of philosophical system, as dependent upon 
psychology and upon all the particular sciences, is doubtless 
near at hand. 

The philosophy of Locke is chiefly an "Essay concerning 
Human Understanding." This essay has been pronounced " the 
most important offspring of modern philosophy." It is, how- 
ever, described by its author as an inquiry " into the original, 
certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the 
grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent." 1 From the 
more modern point of view these words would be understood 
as proposing a mixed psychological and philosophical inquiry. 
This the " Essay " of Locke really is. The philosophy of his 

1 Book I. chap. i. 2. 



86 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

great successor, Berkeley, is confined for the most part to a 
psychological and metaphysical treatment of a single problem 
of cognition, — the problem, namely, of perception by the senses. 
Hume justifies his discussion of the more profound and difficult 
philosophical problems, in a " Treatise of Human Nature," by 
observing that " all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, 
to human nature ; " and that " in pretending, therefore, to ex- 
plain the principles of human nature, we in effect propose a 
compleat system of the sciences." In this way psychology, if 
it be understood as the science which explains the principles 
of human nature, appears to include not only all philosophy, 
but also all the other particular sciences. 

More recently, John Stuart Mill and the associational school 
generally have dominated philosophical discussion almost com- 
pletely with a special psychological theory of the origin and 
laws, in combination, of the ideas. The " Scottish " school, 
including Sir "William Hamilton, 1 have constantly confused 
the psychological investigation of the problem of perception 
with the effort to establish a peculiar form of realism against 
all rival claimants in the general field of philosophy. With the 
same object in view, the most distinguished living representative 
of this school, Dr. McCosh, identifies metaphysical philosophy 
throughout with the systematic arrangement of the so-called 
"intuitions," as determined — it seems to us — by an insuffi- 
cient psychological analysis. 

On the Continent, and especially in Germany, somewhat dif- 
ferent relations have been maintained between psychology and 
philosophy. But everywhere the established relations between 
the two have been intimate and influential for the fate of both. 
By reflective analysis Descartes laid the foundations of modern 
philosophy in an ultimate psychological fact. But every student 
of Cartesianism knows how unsatisfactory was the metaphysical 
structure, regarding Mind and Matter, and the connection of 

1 See the Article of Professor Seth on Philosophy, Encyclopaedia Britannica 
ninth edition. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 87 

the two, and regarding God and his relation to the world, which 
Descartes and his disciples proceeded at once to build upon 
these foundations. The monadology of Leibnitz is a beautiful 
and inspiring dream in metaphysics as controlled by naive psy- 
chological intuition. It is the type of all subsequent attempts 
(like that made, for example, by Pechner in his " Nanna, or the 
Soul-life of Plants ") to transfer, with little enough of criticism, 
the diminishing degrees of man's self-conscious life to the diverse 
forms of reality. 

Wolff is said to have been the first to make that distinction 
of psychology into empirical and rational which holds, substan- 
tially unchanged, until the present time. To empirical psycho- 
logy he assigned the description and systematic arrangement of 
psychical processes ; to rational psychology the explanation of 
these processes by reference to the real nature of the mind 
itself. But the Wolffian empirical psychology was defective 
in that it substituted classification for scientific explanation. 
The Wolffian rational psychology had no sufficient basis in em- 
pirical science, and was also devoid of critical quality. More- 
over, the distinction introduced by Wolff must be employed 
(after being corrected and expanded) to separate the empirical 
science of psychology from the philosophy of mind, rather than 
simply to emphasize a division in psychology. 

With Kant a new department of philosophy sprang out of 
the more penetrating and comprehensive application of reflective 
analysis to psychological phenomena. The " Critique of Pure 
Reason" proposes a problem in the theory of cognition; this 
problem is to be pursued without a critical reconstruction of 
the conclusions of empirical psychology and in contempt and 
despair of rational psychology. Plainly, the Kantian theory 
of knowledge is itself dependent upon certain views of the 
psychical processes that only partially command the support of 
inductive science, while it involves conclusions that constitute 
a special metaphysics of mind, and have the widest and most 
profound influence on all subsequent philosophical system. 



88 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

Since Kant, in Germany, three not very distinctly separable 
ways of regarding the relations of psychology and philosophy 
have been prominent. One of these is the precise opposite of 
that prevalent among English writers. In Germany, the great 
philosophical systems have too often dominated the scientific 
study of the phenomena of man's sentient life. The tendency 
has been to deduce the nature and modes of the behavior of the 
mind from some supreme principle, reached by philosophical 
speculation rather than by inductive science. Hegel's "Phe- 
nomenology of Spirit," for example, is not a psychology es- 
tablished upon a scientific basis of observed psychical facts, 
and inferences from such facts ; it is rather a comprehensive 
but somewhat incoherent survey of different phases in the 
intellectual growth of the race, from a peculiar speculative 
point of view. It is, says Dr. William Wallace, 1 " the pic- 
ture of the Hegelian philosophy in the making, — at the 
stage before the scaffolding has been removed from the build- 
ing." From Fichte and Schelling, as well as Hegel, and from 
Schopenhauer and Hartmann, we get no scientific handling 
of psychical phenomena. Whatever light these writers throw 
upon such phenomena comes under the shadow of their theo- 
ries respecting the nature of reality in general. The science of 
mind is made dependent upon a special way of the speculative 
solving of philosophical problems. 

One of the most fruitful of the attempts made in modern times 
to subject the phenomena of mind to a strictly scientific treat- 
ment arose with Herbart. This great psychologist and his fol- 
lowers have persistently introduced metaphysics into the study 
of the psychical processes. But their point of view has been 
distinctly different from that maintained by the advocates of sys- 
tematic philosophical Idealism. The Herbartians have rather 
made use of metaphysics in psychology, tentatively and as a 
working hypothesis, to assist in the detailed explanation of the 
genesis and development of observed states of consciousness. 

1 Article on Hegel in Encyclopaedia Britannica, ninth edition. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 89 

Herbart himself announces on the titlepage of his work * the 
intention to treat psychology as a " science ; " although he will 
found it anew, not only on experience, but also upon "meta- 
physics and mathematics." The consummate product of the 
Herbartian development, Volkmann von Volkmar, in his ad- 
mirable work on Psychology, 2 defines its problem as follows : 
"To explain the general classes of psychical phenomena by 
means of processes of ideation {Vorstellungen) as empirically 
given, and from the speculative concept of ideation in accord- 
ance with the general laws of the life of ideation." The phi- 
losophy of this school of psychologists is avowedly realistic. 
Its influence is designedly made prominent in the discussion 
of psychological problems. Each of these problems is to be 
considered as having, so to speak, a twofold aspect. It is a 
question of the relation of states of consciousness as empi- 
rically given (a problem in psychological science) ; but it is 
also a question for the correct deductive application of the 
laws of the soul's life, as growing out of the very nature of 
that entity we call soul. 3 

Now, in view of the almost uniform practice of the physical 
sciences in dealing with phenomena under terms of hypotheti- 
cal entities, — such as atoms, ether, electricity (as an essence), 
etc., — it is difficult to see why psychology should be forbidden 
to speak, at least hypothetically, of the entities and forces which 
it seems to find necessary for the explanation of its own pecu- 
liar phenomena. But may it not thus speak with a clear under- 
standing of the fact that it is using appropriate hypotheses? 
And may it not defer to that broader and more penetrating 

1 Psychologie als Wissenschaft, neu gegriindet auf Erfahrung, Metaphysik und 
Mathematik, Kbnigsberg, 1824. 

2 Lehrbuch der Psychologie vom Standpunkte des Realismus und nacli gene- 
tischer Methode, last edition, Cbthen, 1884. 

8 Thus Herbart himself declares : " The whole series of the forms of experience 
must be investigated twice over, metaphysically and psychologically. Both in- 
vestigations must lie side by side, and be compared together long enough for 
every one to see their complete difference so plainly as never to be in danger of 
confusing them again." 



90 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

analysis which philosophy provides for the more complete 
interpretation of its hypotheses? 

The third form of regarding the relations of psychology and 
philosophy which has prevailed in Germany is that of which 
Beneke 1 may be regarded as the chief forerunner and represen- 
tative. It contends for the possibility of separating psycho- 
logy from metaphysics, and of studying it as a natural science 
by the methods appropriate to such a science. Experience is 
rationally elaborated through science. The peculiar experience 
to which psychology, by methods common to it with all natural 
science, attempts to give rational elaboration is, " What thou 
findest in thee, or what thy self-consciousness shows to thee." 
But although Beneke would have us avoid founding psychology 
upon metaphysics, he himself developed several branches of 
philosophy upon the basis of his own psychological doctrines. 
Moreover, as Ueberweg declares, the guiding thought in all the 
investigations of Beneke is this, " that through self-conscious- 
ness we know ourselves psychically just as we really are." The 
external world, however, we can know only indirectly, by sup- 
posing " analoga of our own psychical life " to underlie its phe- 
nomena. The masterly effort of this thinker to establish a 
distinction between psychology and philosophy, by freeing psy- 
chology from metaphysics, serves further to illustrate how inti- 
mate and pervasive are the relations of the two. 

The development of psychology in attempted independence 
of metaphysics, and by the methods of the natural sciences, has 
now gone far beyond the point at which it was left by Beneke. 
Even the modest, tentative hypothesis of a soul, and of its de- 
velopment as the life of a real being, has been rejected by many 
as a prejudice harmful to the freedom of scientific inquiry. But 
no examination of so-called psychical processes can be prose- 

1 For Beneke's own view, see his Lehrbuch der Psychologie als Naturwissen- 
schaft, lste Aufl., 1833 ; 4rte Aufl., 1877. Also Pragmatische Psychologie, 1850 ; 
Die neue Psychologie, etc. ; System der Metaphysik, p. 68 ff. ; and the supple- 
ment ; Der streng naturwissenschaftliche Character der neuen Psychologie, in 
the Archiv fur die pragmatische Psychologie, iii. 495 ff. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 91 

cuted long without bringing the inquirer face to face with a 
certain conception of peculiar value and peculiar claims to 
validate itself, in some sort, on reality (with the conception, that 
is, of the Ego, which is the permanent subject of states, and yet 
not itself a state) ; accordingly, the science of psychology seems 
to itself confined within limits too narrow for its own comfort 
and success as a science, if denied the thorough analysis of this 
conception. 

The extreme followers of this empirical tendency, in Ger- 
many and in France, have proclaimed the possibility and ne- 
cessity of a science of " psychology without a soul." But how 
shall we understand this phrase ? Does it mean that even 
such reality of being as consciousness itself commonly at- 
taches to the word " soul " is to be understood by the science 
of psychical phenomena as merely hypothetical ? Then it be- 
longs either to psychology, or to some more nearly ultimate 
form of reflective analysis, to clear up this hypothesis. Does 
it mean to deny that any conception such as that called the 
" soul," with even its alleged hypothetical reference to reality, 
is actually to be found among the psychical phenomena ? Then 
the examination and analysis of these phenomena has hither- 
to been most amazingly lacking in scientific thoroughness and 
exactness. Does it mean that, for the hypothesis of a soul, 
scientific psychology requires that we should substitute the 
hypothesis of no-soul, — the negative or sceptical conclusion 
that the subject to which the states of consciousness are re- 
ferred has no existence in reality ? Then psychology, in the 
name of exact science, has gone beyond the avowed rights of 
such science. It has substituted one metaphysical hypothesis 
for another ; it has assumed the so-called positivistic, or mate- 
rialistic, instead of the so-called spiritualistic position. 

So difficult is it wholly to bar metaphysics out of psychology 
that those who claim to approach the psychical phenomena 
from the purely empirical and physiological point of view are 
not infrequently chief sinners in respect of metaphysical 



92 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

hypotheses. Their whole language convicts them of this. For 
explanation of the processes observed in self-consciousness, 
they freely refer to hypothetical and inferred entities that lie 
wholly and forever beyond consciousness. The existence of 
occult metem/pirical (to borrow Mr. Lewes's word) beings, far 
removed from any possible or conceivable experience, is as- 
sumed to account for psychical phenomena. Only the meta- 
physics of physics, in its most uncouth and untried forms, can 
be admitted, it would seem, into the exact science of psychol- 
ogy. Psychical phenomena are not allowed to appear in their 
naked reality, undisguised with the war-paint and war-feathers 
of some momentarily dominant physiological or physical hy- 
pothesis. To such a result have certain devotees of science 
been led by the attempt to set psychology free from its inti- 
mate relation to philosophy. 

There can be no doubt that the reasons for the difficulties 
which have so constantly accompanied the attempt to distin- 
guish psychology and philosophy, lie deep in the nature of the 
case. Psychology, in the widest meaning of the word (as in- 
cluding the sciences of logic, ethics, and aesthetics), cannot be 
mechanically separated from philosophy. For psychology is 
the only normal, and the chief necessary, propaedeutic of phi- 
losophy. All the problems of philosophy first emerge to clear 
view in the study of psychical processes. Psychology starts 
and shapes these problems ; from its hands philosophy receives 
them for further analytic treatment, and for constructive use in 
the elaboration of philosophical system. Psychology represents 
the first and scientific stage of reflective analysis, and of the 
theoretic synthesis of experience. But philosophy is the stage 
beyond and ultimate. Philosophy involves the further and 
most complete possible reflective analysis of the problems pre- 
pared for it by psychology. It aims at a theoretical synthesis 
which shall include the supreme generalizations based not only 
upon the psychological sciences in their widest range, but also 
upon all the sciences. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 93 

But the principles with which philosophical analysis and 
synthesis deal must, in their turn, penetrate and modify the 
results of psychological science. Every one of these principles 
has a two-fold aspect, as it were. It may be considered as a 
conception or judgment built up in the actual evolution of the 
mind's life, or as a self-consciously recognized norm or presup- 
position of the concrete activities of that life. But it may also 
be considered as having a reference to forces and beings in the 
world of the really Existent. On the one hand, its genesis and 
development admit of study as a process capable of scientific 
verification. On the other hand, the questions respecting its 
&r£ra-inental reference, and place in the universe of intercon- 
nected reality, remain for philosophy to undertake. They 
remain, even after we have endeavored to exclude them. They 
recur, even after — in the name of exact science — we have 
dogmatically given to them the agnostic, the sceptical, or the 
materialistic explanation. 

In view of facts like these, Wundt feels justified in holding 
that the relation of philosophy to all the sciences is such as to 
give to every important subject-matter two aspects, or rather, 
a place in two systems, — the system of science, and the system 
of philosophical unity. But so close and peculiar is the rela- 
tion of psychology, in particular, to philosophy that the parti- 
tion of sovereignty between the two is an abstract scheme which, 
in the presence of actuality, always appears unsatisfactory. 1 

The general truth just stated might be illustrated by the 
example of every important psychological problem. 

The problem of sense-perception, the cognition of things by 
the senses, is primarily a psychological problem ; but it involves 
various philosophical questions over which the different schools 
of philosophy have divided. As pursued by the so-called 
" old psychology," its solution was understood to be chiefly a 
matter of the classification of psychical activities under the 
heads of " faculty," " intuition," etc. As pursued by the new 

1 System der Philosophie, pp. 5 and 21 f. 



94 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

psychology, it is rather an inquiry into the genesis and evolu- 
tion of related psychical processes in dependence upon excited 
states of the nervous mechanism. The scientific solution of 
the problem of perception by the senses requires, therefore, an 
analysis of a complex process into its simplest discernible 
factors, and a precise statement of the conditions under which 
perceptions arise and develop in consciousness. We are thus 
led to examine not only the different sorts of sensations in 
themselves considered, but also, and chiefly, the laws of their 
dependence, as respects quality, quantity, time-rate, etc., upon 
the kind, amount, order, etc., of the stimuli, and upon the 
structure and locality of the nervous mass to which the stim- 
uli are applied. We are also led to consider the laws according 
to which the sensations are combined, the sensation-complexes 
grow in intricacy and are localized and objectively projected, 
so as to become possessed of those relations which belong to 
every so-called "Thing," with other things, in the world of 
space and time. 

But is our analysis of " things " ultimate when we have 
reduced them to localized and objectively projected sensation- 
complexes ? Is there not somewhat over and above, or under- 
neath, all that is reached by the analysis, necessary to the 
cognition of things, — somewhat corresponding to what we 
mean, or think we mean, when we affirm of every " Thing " a 
Reality that is not exhausted by the description of concrete 
psychical processes ? Whence, too, comes this form of Space, 
in which all things are given as existent ? What, if anything, 
that is itself really existent, do we mean by the word " space " ? 
How, moreover, shall we explain Time, in which things appear 
to have their sequence, as itself arising in our minds, or in 
reality, from the sequence of experienced things ? 

With questions such as these the empirical science of modern 
psychology struggles manfully. In the effort to answer them 
it employs a keener analysis and a more elaborate experimenta- 
tion for the discovery and description of the genesis and evo- 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 95 

lution of the requisite psychical processes. It investigates the 
rise and growth of those refinements of conceptions involved in 
all the matured sensation-complexes, such as have already been 
referred to under the names Reality, Space, and Time. But 
the mind, roused by the discipline of empirical psychology to 
scepticism even concerning its own instinctive metaphysics, is 
not fully satisfied with the answer which the most elaborate 
forms of this science provide. It demands something more, if 
it be possible, than a description of the order in which, and the 
circumstances under which, arose its own mental images of 
Eeality, Space, and Time. It inquires into the ea^ra-rnental 
validity and significance of these conceptions ; it demands a 
further reflective analysis in order to absolve them from some 
of the difficulties and contradictions that seem attached to 
them, and perhaps reduce them to the unity of some higher 
Idea. This inquiry and demand give rise to philosophy. 

Nor does it seem easy theoretically to draw the line, exact 
and rigid, about the domain within which the purely scientific 
consideration of the problem of sense-perception must confine 
itself. To be scientific, in any worthy sense of the word, it 
would seem that we must make our analysis of the phenomena, 
and our description and explanation of their uniform relations, 
as complete as possible. In the very effort, then, to be com- 
pletely scientific, we cannot avoid starting various latent meta- 
physical questionings. On reflection a " Thing " always appears 
to us as involving somewhat more than is fully described in the 
narrative of our experience with the related psychical processes. 
There is always in the " Thing " an additional unknown quan- 
tity, a plus x, as it were, which seems to refuse to be classified 
or explained in company with all concrete processes. And 
unless we are willing, with an unsophisticated cheerfulness of 
superficiality which is no less unscientific than unphilosophi- 
cal, either to overlook this + x altogether, or to deceive our- 
selves with the thought that we have explained it when we 
have called it by another name (e. g., substance, substratum, 



96 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

permanent subject — Trager — of states), we seem forced by 
our problem to enter the deep shadows of metaphysics. When 
we look back from the land of these shadows, we find it dif- 
ficult to say at just what point we abandoned the certainties 
of empirical science. 

Schools of philosophy have divided over the problem of 
perception by the senses. The " empiricists " and "nativists" 
cannot even keep their strife out of experimental psychology. 
But this strife within the so-called " scientific " domain is only 
anticipatory of the larger and profounder contention which 
issues in the domain of philosophy. Here the manner of 
regarding and solving the problem of our cognition of things 
is found to involve considerations determinative of our entire 
system of speculative thinking. Out of this problem there 
seem necessarily to arise questions concerning the relation 
of the brain and the sentient life in man, of "matter" and 
"mind" in the universe at large, and of the ultimate nature and 
reality of those existent beings which we mean to designate 
by the latter two abstract terms. Hence arise, in no small 
degree, the differences discussed between philosophical agnos- 
ticism and scepticism on the one hand, and realism, idealism, 
dualism, or monism, on the other. 

As this general problem of sense-perception is specialized 
by the particular natural and physical sciences, it is seen to 
furnish yet more definite material for philosophy. The cog- 
nition of " Things," as they are known by these sciences, is said 
to be based on exact and comprehensive observation. But, in 
truth, the psychological theory of this so-called " observation " 
will go but a little way toward the justification of the scien- 
tific character of the cognition. Every plain man is, in his 
practice, a wonderful metaphysician. He uncritically and in- 
stinctively makes the world of his immediate experience to 
be all underlain and interpenetrated with a world of postulated 
real existences. Psychology shows us not only in what con- 
crete forms ordinary experience proceeds to organize itself into 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 97 

the living development of mind, but also in accordance with 
what primitive norms, and upon the basis of what necessary 
postulates, this organization takes place. But the " unseen 
world " of the physical and natural sciences is much more 
wonderful than that of ordinary experience. The student of 
these sciences — scorner of metaphysics though he may be — 
is a most masterful metaphysician. The world in the midst 
of which he lives — the world, primarily, of his own psychical 
processes of imagination and inference, founded upon unusual 
means for perception by the senses, and stimulated by the 
rivalry of critics and colleagues — is far removed from, and 
vastly unlike, the world of immediate experience and first 
intention. And here we do not need to repeat what has 
been said in discussing the relation of philosophy to the posi- 
tive sciences of the external world. We only insist that the 
treatment of the principles, presupposed and ascertained by 
these sciences, is difficult satisfactorily to apportion between 
the science of psychology and the philosophy of nature and 
mind. Where, for example, does the psychological discussion 
of such conceptions as Force, Matter, Law, Causation, etc., 
end, and their philosophical discussion begin ? 

No less difficulty is experienced when the attempt is made to 
secure a strict and mechanical separation between the psycholo- 
gical and the philosophical treatment of the problem of self- 
consciousness. The interest which the human mind necessarily 
takes in the knowledge of itself is undoubtedly a most potent 
and indestructible source of philosophy. So true is this that 
metaphysical answers to the questions, What am I ? and How 
and whence do I, self-conscious and rational being, come to be ? 
long preceded the beginnings of empirical and scientific psychol- 
ogy. To this science, as now understood, it belongs to trace the 
genesis and evolution of those states which we call "self-con- 
scious," of the concept of that self to which all states of con- 
sciousness are referred, and of that peculiar form of activity 
in which the reference consists, — the so-called activity of 

7 



98 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

" self-consciousness." This general problem modern psychology 
therefore attacks in several ways. It describes the physical and 
psychical conditions under which, so far as can be ascertained, 
we become self-conscious. It traces the stages of the develop- 
ment of self-consciousness, in dependence upon these conditions. 
It strives by analysis to discover the factors and laws which 
enter into this development. 

But again, in the consideration of the problem of self-con- 
sciousness, empirical psychology starts a variety of questionings 
which it cannot answer, or even consider, without an appeal to 
philosophy. Of the other particular sciences we may say that 
their attitude is uncritical toward the different ways of answer- 
ing such questions. But the very business of psychology re- 
quires the determination of the most exact and comprehensive 
answer possible to these inquiries. And as this science presses 
forward with its attempts at explanation, it becomes increas- 
ingly difficult to tell precisely when it crosses the line that 
bounds it, as science, from the larger domain of philosophy. 

The problem of the cognition of things and the problem of 
the cognition of self are both connected inseparably with the gen- 
eral problem of all cognition. In these two forms of the prob- 
lem both the objects and the method of cognition appear to be 
very different. The object in one case is " things ; " in the other 
case it is that " self " which makes no other distinction so clearly 
and persistently as the distinction between itself and things. 
The method, in one case, is called by psychology " percep- 
tion " through the senses ; in the other case it is called " self- 
consciousness." But both processes must be, in some sort, 
fundamentally alike ; otherwise they could not both be called 
by the common term " cognition." And both objects, — things 
and self, — it would seem, must be held to have some real like- 
ness underlying or conjoined with that difference which is re- 
cognized in the seemingly fundamental distinction made by 
consciousness, since they are both alike objects for the cogni- 
tion of the same subject. Here, then, is another problem, 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 99 

requiring discussion from both the psychological and the 
philosophical points of view. Here, also, is another problem 
in the consideration of which psychology and philosophy find 
it necessary to enter into their own peculiar form of partner- 
ship. In this case, too, the partnership is unlimited as respects 
time, and difficult of exact limitation as respects each partner's 
share of responsibility. 

" Logic " is the name given for many centuries after Aristotle 
to a science which aimed (either as pure or applied) to tell men 
how they do and must think, as well as how they ought to 
think. Far be it from our purpose to depreciate the achieve- 
ments of this science, whether as it was left by its great founder 
in what was long esteemed a finished form, or as it is now modi- 
fied under the influences of modern psychology and philosophy. 
But if the truth must be spoken, there can be no science of logic 
as independent of psychology and the philosophical theory of 
cognition. To psychology rightfully belongs the description 
and explanation of the genesis and organization of experience 
through thought ; the forms and laws of thought are therefore 
peculiarly its own material. If logical forms and laws are 
regarded as primarily other than forms and laws of living psy- 
chical processes, they are wrongly regarded. Moreover, psy- 
chology, in the broad modern way of its study, has reference 
to thought-processes and thought-products, not simply as made 
known to introspection in the consciousness of the individual, 
but also as made known to historico-genetic researches in the 
evolution of the thought of the race. Therefore, that form of 
logic which deals with the correct method of discovery and 
verification, in the particular sciences, is but an apartment of 
applied psychology. But if logic raises the ultimate inquiries 
respecting the power of man to know reality, to represent in 
forms of his thought the forms of the being and action of the 
really Existent, then it becomes philosophical. Such " logical " 
inquiries belong to that branch of philosophy which is called 
the theory of knowledge. 



100 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

In the discussion of the problem of knowledge, therefore, it is 
peculiarly difficult to tell where a line shall be drawn between 
those sciences, on the one hand, which we call logic or psychol- 
ogy, and the domain, on the other hand, of philosophy as the 
general doctrine of cognition. 

Ethics, considered as an empirical science, like logic, cannot 
be given a place among the sciences as distinct from psychology. 
Indeed, the practical outcome of the attempt to separate ethics 
and psychology has been highly injurious to both. This at- 
tempt has resulted not only in confining the discussion of 
psychological problems, among English writers, too closely to 
the phenomena of cognition, but also in vitiating the interpreta- 
tion of these phenomena by excluding from it the light thrown 
by the scientific study of the phenomena of desire, feeling, and 
willing. It has, moreover, resulted in much ?mpsychological 
discussion of ethical problems. Few of the English treatises 
on " ethics " so called have been based upon that thorough 
knowledge of modern psychological conclusions, or that consis- 
tent use of psychological analysis, which are indispensable to 
the highest success. Indeed, under this title we ordinarily 
expect to find either a work on moral philosophy or one on 
ethical praxis (i. e., the art of behaving one's self properly in 
society as at present constituted, especially in English-speaking 
countries). 

In Germany, on the contrary, treatises corresponding to the 
English books on ethics are comparatively rare. And, indeed, 
the occasion for the composition of such works has scarcely 
been felt. For in Germany every writer on psychology, how- 
ever unimportant, thinks it necessary to touch upon those forms 
of psychical life that are called " ethical," — and this from the 
point of view of a scientific psychology. Psychological treatises 
on the different ethical problems, such as those of feeling, habit, 
volition, etc., therefore abound. But this does not prevent a 
rich development of writings concerned with the metaphysics of 
ethics, the philosophy of rights, and of the State; and with the 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 101 

special classes and forms of ethical principles such as are treated 
under the head of " theological ethics " (Rothe), Christian ethics, 
biblical ethics, etc. 

Ethics, then, cannot be considered an independent science. 
"What is properly called by this term is either a phase or de- 
partment rather than a distinct branch of psychology ; or else 
it is moral philosophy. The relation in which the science of 
ethics stands to philosophical discipline is to be determined as 
part of the more general question, "What is the relation of psy- 
chological science to philosophy ? When, then, Dr. Stucken- 
berg considers psychology as propEedeutic to philosophy, rather 
than a branch of philosophy, but at the same time separates 
ethics from its complete dependence, as a science, upon psycho- 
logical analysis and upon general psychological principles, he 
seems to us precisely to reverse the right relations. 1 In the 
treatment of those problems which are called "ethical" it is no 
easy matter, however, to distinguish, either theoretically or in 
practice, between the point of view held by the science of psy- 
chology and that taken by ethical philosophy. 

Psychological ethics investigates those psychical processes — 
whether called processes of cognition, feeling, desire, or voli- 
tion — which enter into what we call conduct and character, 
as distinguished from mere action and habit. Among such 
cognitive processes it discovers the genesis and maturing of cer- 
tain ideas of a peculiar kind. By analysis and generalization 
of these processes it arrives at the existence of a norm of all 
ethical ideation, called " the idea of the right," or " the morally 
good." By the same method of scientific psychological analysis, 
it arrives at the existence of an altogether peculiar norm of 
feeling; for this it appropriates the term "feeling of the 
ought," or feeling of moral obligation. It also traces the gen- 
esis and development of those peculiar emotions which are ex- 
perienced in the contemplation of character or conduct that 
appears in relations of conformity or opposition to the idea of 

1 Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, chapters iv., v., and ix. 



102 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

the right, of the morally good. These are the emotions of moral 
approbation and disapprobation, of ethical good- and ill-desert. 
Furthermore, it investigates the evolution of so-called " free- 
will." It traces, that is, the rise and growth of the mind's 
power to conform character and conduct to certain ideals of 
reason. In all this, psychology is in the exercise of its legiti- 
mate scientific function, — not the less truly because the psy- 
chical processes which it classifies and endeavors to explain 
appear of a somewhat peculiar nature. 

The further demand of reason for light upon the problems 
of psychological ethics has been seen to be one of the main 
sources of philosophy. The relation of the science of psycho- 
logy to philosophy is, accordingly, not different with respect to 
these problems from that which maintains itself with respect 
to all problems that are common to both branches of knowl- 
edge. But the department of philosophy with which psycho- 
logical ethics stands in such peculiar relations is of a special 
kind. This department is not metaphysics, in the more limited 
sense in which we shall employ that word. It is rather the 
philosophy of one of the Ideals of Eeason, — the Ideal of Con- 
duct. When we inquire into the origin, the ground, and vali- 
dity of those ideation processes in which the Eight, the Ought, 
the Morally Well-deserving or Ill-deserving are given to self- 
consciousness, we find the resulting problems related to the 
general postulate of a unity of Ultimate Eeality in another than 
the strictly metaphysical way. The conceptions answering to 
these terms (" the Eight," etc.) do not represent particular real 
entities or modes of the being of such entities as do the concep- 
tions of Matter, Force, Atom, Mind, Thought, etc. They rather 
stimulate and guide the feeling and volition in that compre- 
hensive and indefinite way which belongs to a rational Ideal. 

Philosophy receives from psychological ethics the problems 
already prepared for it by the first steps of reflective analysis. 
Its one greatest and final inquiry concerns the relation in 
which the ethical ideals stand to that Unity of all ultimate 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 1Q3 

Eeality which it is compelled to postulate. Ethical philosophy 
thus leads the mind forward to the question whether these and 
all other ideals, as well as all forms of concrete reality, must 
not be considered as having their ground in one Being (an 
Ideal-Real, or really existent, supreme Idea). But this ques- 
tion belongs rather to the philosophy of religion, which is the 
supreme department of philosophy, — the highest rational 
synthesis of metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, and the 
philosophy of the Ideal. 

The remarks just made concerning ethics apply as well to 
sesthetics, which also may be treated either as a branch of 
psychological science, or as a department of the philosophy 
of the Ideal. 

Abundant reasons, then, exist not only in the past history of 
philosophy, but also in the nature of the case, for affirming that 
the relation of philosophy to empirical psychology is peculiarly 
intimate. Neither in theory nor in practice is it possible to 
make a mechanical division, as it were, between the two. And 
if objection be made to the word " mechanical," as not correctly 
expressing the nature of the division to be made between even 
the physical sciences and philosophy, we are ready to discard 
the term. It is not so much as possible to propound and un- 
derstand the problems of philosophy without the propaedeutic 
of scientific psychology. Every important philosophical in- 
quiry is primarily psychological ; not one such inquiry would 
ever be raised, much less intelligently shaped, by the physical 
and natural sciences alone. Moreover, the psychological dis- 
cussion of the problems of mind cannot escape the influence of 
philosophy. It should never strive to make this escape. And 
yet a plain distinction between psychology and philosophy, 
even in the consideration of the same problems, may be made 
theoretically ; and in practice the distinction may be carried 
out with a measure of success. 

Several recent writers have drawn the distinction between 
psychology and philosophy with more than customary clear- 



104 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

ness and intelligence. Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, for example, 
holds, in apparent opposition to most of his own countrymen, 
that this distinction can be scientifically defined and consis- 
tently carried out. 1 He keenly and correctly shows the failure 
of Sir William Hamilton, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert 
Spencer to make and observe this distinction. " Psychology," 
says Mr. Hodgson, " has all states of consciousness for its 
object-matter ; and so far it has precisely the same object- 
matter as that here attributed to philosophy." And yet by 
simply " adding psychology to the list of the other sciences," 
we do not perform the same service as we should do "by super- 
posing philosophy on the other sciences, as something gener- 
ically different from them." Psychology, indeed, is led, in its 
search for the conditions existendi of the states of consciousness, 
to the laws and nature of the objects, of substances so called. 
It " envisages the particular relations of dependence which par- 
ticular portions of the subjective aspect have to particular por- 
tions of the objective. And it is therefore not permitted, like 
philosophy, to abstract from the substrate, or agent which has 
the states of consciousness." Moreover, " the analysis of states 
of consciousness as given in philosophy takes those states in con- 
nection with their objective aspects, — these objective aspects 
it is which give us the states to be analyzed ; but in psycho- 
logy it is in reference to their conditions in the organism or 
other substratum that they come under analytic dissection." 
The method and assumption of the two are, accordingly, dia- 
metrically opposed. In philosophy, we take the ultimate 
truths of the sciences and inquire what are their subjective 
aspects; in psychology we take supposed ultimate subjective 
aspects and ask what their objective aspects, what their corre- 
sponding existences, must be. Philosophy is therefore distin- 
guished from psychology by its elevation of Pteflection into 
a method. 

Philosophy is not, however. — we are at once told, — limited 

1 Philosophy of Reflection, i. 50 ff. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 105 

to the analytic branch of ultimate subjective science ; the con- 
structive branch of philosophy is also necessary and legitimate. 
The constructive branch must be pursued in connection with 
the analytic. But the elements given by the different analyses 
may be hypothetically constructed and reconstructed in various 
ways. There cannot be anything beyond existence that is not 
existence. But there may be existences or existent worlds very 
different from that given in our consciousness. "This whole 
hypothetical group of phenomenal worlds would constitute the 
field of the constructive branch of philosophy. It is this right 
of making hypotheses in explanation of our own world which 
connects philosophy with science. Here again, however, phi- 
losophy differs from the particular sciences, including psycho- 
logy, in the application of method common to them both. All 
these sciences use reflection, and by this use are connected with 
each other and with philosophy. " But philosophy elevates this 
common thread of reflection into a method ; and it is its method, 
founded on reflection, that at once distinguishes philosophy from 
the sciences and gives it a larger field." The constructive 
branch of philosophy, when constituted by the method of the 
most ultimate reflection, is, however, says Mr. Hodgson, " to be 
regarded as a philosophized psychology, or the return of Meta- 
physic upon psychology." It is " hypothetical psychology, psy- 
chology carried up into more general regions." " Its aim is to 
put the objective aspect, a new hypothetical world, to the hypo- 
thetical subjective aspect with which it begins." 

More particularly still, 1 we have psychology described by 
Mr. Hodgson as dealing with the conditions or causes of states 
of consciousness in a scientific way. But philosophy considers 
" aspects." "Aspect, as a philosophical term, means a character 
co-extensive with and peculiar to the thing of which it is an 
aspect." The two ultimate and necessary aspects in philosophy 
are the subjective and the objective. " The high and abstract 
region in which this distinction arises is the watershed of 

1 Philosophy of Reflection, ii. 20 ff. 



106 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

philosophical systems." The limits and relations between a 
genuine philosophy and a scientific psychology can be defined 
only by the removal of causation from consciousness, as such. 
Now, since the only known causation is material, if you retain 
causation in philosophy, as respects the ultimate aspects with 
which it deals, you materialize philosophy. If you do not hold 
fast by it in psychology, you render psychology unscientific and 
illusory, since " causation by consciousness is incalculable." l 
In this connection, and it would seem as a result of the effort 
to distinguish psychology and philosophy, Mr. Hodgson avows 
his conversion to completely materialistic psychology. 

The distinction drawn by Professor Seth 2 between psycho- 
logy and philosophy differs from the foregoing in several 
important particulars. Whereas Mr. Hodgson emphasizes 
especially the ultimate nature of the analysis which philos- 
ophy employs, "it is with the ultimate synthesis," says Pro- 
fessor Seth, " that philosophy concerns itself ; it has to show 
that the subject-matter with which we are dealing in detail 
really is a whole, consisting of articulated members." Psycho- 
logy, on the other hand, belongs with the group of the sciences ; 
although a special relation has always existed between it and 
systematic philosophy, and the closeness of the connection is 
characteristic of modern, and especially of English, thought. 
The explanation of this connection is that in the scientific 
study of mind " we have, so far, in our hands the fact (the fact 
of intelligence) to which all other facts are relative." But 
mind, and its facts of knowing, willing, etc., may be looked 
at in two different ways. " It may be regarded simply as fact, 
in which case the evolutions of mind may be traced and re- 
duced to laws in the same way as the phenomena treated by 
the other sciences (psychology, sans phrase).'" It is mind in its 
ulterior aspect, as grounding inferences beyond itself. Now 
" the last abstraction which it becomes the duty of philosophy 

1 Philosophy of Reflection, ii. 65. 

2 Article on Philosophy in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edition). 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 107 

to remove is the abstraction from the knowing subject which is 
made by all the sciences, including the science of psychology." 

Subject-object, knowledge with its implicates — this unity 
in duality is the ultimate aspect which reality presents. Phi- 
losophy may then be said to be the explication of what is in- 
volved in this relation, or a theory of its possibility. Two 
problems may be discriminated as entering necessarily into 
this general problem of the explication of what is involved in 
the relation of subject-object ; these are a problem of knowl- 
edge and a problem of being. " It is evident, then, that phi- 
losophy as theory of knowledge must have for its complement 
philosophy as metaphysics or ontology." Logic, aesthetics, and 
ethics are rightly considered by Professor Seth to be sciences 
affording subject-matter which requires both psychological and 
philosophical treatment. 1 

A nearer approximation to the correct statement of the rela- 
tion of psychology to general philosophical discipline is, in at 
least some respects, that made by Dr. Stuckenberg. 2 This 
writer objects, indeed, to placing psychology in the same cate- 
gory with the natural sciences. It appears, however, that his 

1 It will be helpful in this connection to quote, from two other writers on this 
subject, passages which are brought forward with approval in the article of Pro- 
fessor Seth. 

" We may view knowledge," says Professor Croom Robertson, " as mere sub- 
jective function ; but it has its full meaning only as it is taken to represent what 
we may call objective fact, or is such as is named (in different circumstances) real, 
valid, true. As mere subjective function, which it is to the psychologist, it is 
best spoken of by an unambiguous name, and for this there seems none better 
than Intellection. We may then say that psychology is occupied with the nat- 
ural function of Intellection, seeking to discover its laws and distinguishing its 
various modes. . . . Philosophy, on the other hand, is theory of Knowledge (as 
that which is known)." — Psychology and Philosophy {Mind, 1883, p. 15 f.). 

"Comparing psychology and epistemology," says Dr. Ward, "we may say 
that the former is essentially genetic in its method, and might, if we had the 
power to revise our existing terminology, be called biology ; the latter, on the 
other hand, is essentially devoid of everything historical, and treats, stcb specie 
ceternitatis, as Spinoza might have said, of human knowledge, conceived as the 
possession of mind in general." — Psychological Principles (Mind, 1883, pp. 166 ff.). 

2 Chapter on Philosophy and Psychology, in his Introduction to the Study 
of Philosophy, New York, 1888. 



108 .PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

objection obtains against reducing the science of mind to the 
rank of a department of physics and chemistry, rather than 
against giving to the psychical processes a treatment by strictly 
scientific method. " To make a theory of the essence of the 
soul, the principle for the explanation of its processes is," says 
this writer, " both unphilosophical and unscientific." And yet 
" if the natural sciences may postulate matter, there is no rea- 
son why psychology may not postulate mind, as a peculiar 
entity. It must, however, be treated as a mere postulate, and 
the supposed essence must not dominate the entire investiga- 
tion, as if its nature were established." Psychology, then, can- 
not take the place of philosophy, which is " the rational system 
of fundamental principles." But while every serious study 
may be a preparation for philosophy, psychology is peculiarly 
its propaedeutic. In carrying out this distinction, however, 
Dr. Stuckenberg makes no provision for the philosophical treat- 
ment of the principles of the natural sciences ; nor does he 
sufficiently discriminate the scientific from the philosophical 
treatment of the subjects usually included under the heads of 
logic, ethics, and aesthetics, as well as psychology. The results 
of this failure render his divisions of philosophy peculiarly 
unsatisfactory. 

We believe that the previous definition of philosophy, and the 
fixing of its relations to science in general, furnish the means 
for indicating more clearly and comprehensively than do any 
of the foregoing views, its peculiar relations of agreement and 
difference toward psychology. 

The peculiar domain of empirical psychology is the descrip- 
tion and explanation of the phenomena of individual human 
consciousness, as such. Every so-called "state of conscious- 
ness " may be said to furnish a number of problems which pro- 
voke reflective analysis and scientific research. This research 
is made more difficult, because self-consciousness, in the form 
in which psychological science begins to make use of it, im- 
plies an organization of experience that has already reached 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 109 

an advanced stage. The science of psychology is by no means 
satisfied with the mere description and classification of the 
"states" given in developed self-consciousness. Especially as 
studied in the modern spirit and by the modern methods, it 
recognizes the demand made upon it to " explain " these states. 
This explanation it undertakes to make scientific, especially in 
two directions. It analyzes the exceedingly complex states, as 
they are given to developed self-consciousness, into their most 
primitive and nearly simple factors ; and it discovers the laws 
and conditions of their synthesis. It also traces the evolution 
of the same states as they succeed each other, with dependence 
upon preceding states and with a growing complexity, in the 
life of the soul. In other words, psychology strives to be sci- 
entific by being thoroughly analytic and historico-genetic in its 
study of mental phenomena. It is not, however, as Mr. Hodg- 
son claims, limited in its attempts' at exact explanation to the 
" causal " action of the body (objective aspect, or organism) on 
the mind (subjective aspect, or conscious state). 

But psychology cannot be long and thoroughly pursued as 
a science without becoming aware of the presence of problems 
which it seems beyond the power of experimental or intro- 
spective analysis and synthesis fully to solve. When scientific 
study is begun, it finds the distinction between subjective and 
objective already established. It makes unquestioning use, at 
first, of this distinction to explain the genesis of states of 
consciousness from the effect of external influences upon the 
peripheral or central nervous system. It finds the subject of 
all the psychical states already self-constituted, as it were, and 
insisting on its right of referring to itself the states as all its 
own. It makes use of this reference to explain the present 
states as arising from previous states, under a theory of the 
association of ideas or of the influence of desire upon volition, 
etc. It finds certain collective images, and so-called abstract 
concepts and intuitions, already set into an habitual mode of 
procedure, in the uniform development of the mental life. It 



110 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. 

helps out its science by employing these images and concepts. 
It tells how states of consciousness are " caused " by pre- 
existing or co-existing states of the brain ; or how the body 
and mind " influence " each other ; or how " quantity " and 
" quality " of psychical states " depend " upon amount and kind 
of physical stimuli ; or how the states, although they seem to 
"belong" to the mind, do "really" belong to the brain, etc. 

As a matter of course, then, the scientific student of men- 
tal phenomena raises the question as to the genesis of these 
very distinctions and presuppositions in which he finds his 
own attempts at explanation invariably and inextricably in- 
volved. He is forced to come to some conclusion, at least 
a provisional and hypothetical one, regarding the nature and 
form of development of that (the life of the so-called Mind or 
Soul) which he is engaged in studying. But he cannot accept 
any conclusion on such a matter — in however cautious and 
merely tentative a manner — without appearing to adopt a 
philosophical tenet. Moreover, he finds that some theory as 
to the nature of the subject called " myself," and of the objects 
known as " things " of my experience, and as to the relations 
existing between this subject and these objects, and as to 
the validity of the self-reference of all states to the one sub- 
ject of them all, etc., is helpful in explanation. His case is here 
somewhat analogous to that of the working physicist, who holds 
provisionally the molecular theory of the constitution of matter. 

The psychologist who aims to keep his pursuit within strictly 
scientific lines can proceed little or no farther than the point 
described above. His attitude toward philosophical discipline 
is that of a giver and a borrower as well. He contributes to 
philosophy, as transformed by the first stages of reflective analy- 
sis and synthesis, the problems which constitute its subject- 
matter, and over the treatment of which its schools are divided. 
He gives to these problems the correct shaping which they may 
receive as presuppositions and discovered principles of that sci- 
ence which is the peculiar propaedeutic of philosophy. He bor- 



PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. HI 

rows from philosophy, as working hypotheses to be tested in 
an experimental way, its conclusions concerning the nature and 
validity, in the world of reality, of the principles which his sci- 
ence implicates. 

But philosophy is somewhat more than a higher stage of psy- 
chology. Its aim is the rational system of the principles pre- 
supposed and ascertained by all the particular sciences, — in 
the relation which these principles sustain to ultimate Eeality. 
Its analysis is then more ultimate and objective than that of 
psychology. Its problems all have, indeed, a subjective origin 
and aspect ; for they are all most intelligently and consistently 
started in the effort of reason to understand itself. Psycho- 
logical analysis, as a special propaedeutic of philosophy, dis- 
engages and prepares these problems. But the same human 
reason which, with introspective or experimental analysis, seeks 
to know itself by a scientific psychology, constructs all the 
other particular sciences. Without it, and except as under its 
forth-puttings and laws, none of the sciences exist. Its ulti- 
mate analysis will, therefore, take them all into the account. 
It will extricate the presuppositions, and seize upon and appro- 
priate the discovered principles, of them all. This implies more 
than what Mr. Hodgson calls " the removal of causation from 
consciousness, as such." 

And in its synthesis philosophy will transcend the psycho- 
logical theory which, after accepting the primary analysis, 
simply puts together again the two great groups of psychical 
phenomena, and grounds them in hypothetical realities called 
" souls " and " things," that it may the better explain the un- 
folding of psychical development. For, in its synthesis, philos- 
ophy will consider all the phenomena, and all the particular 
things which are regarded by the positive sciences as their 
subjects, — all happenings and all realities, — in relation to 
one supreme Eeality. This Eeality comprehends in itself the 
ground of all psychical life, even of the ideals of reason itself. 
It is a unity of ideal Eeality, a supreme realized Idea. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SPIRIT AND THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

HOW to arrive at philosophical truth, is a question the 
consideration of which, whether from the theoretical or 
the practical point of view, is encompassed hy no small diffi- 
culties. Even in the pursuit of science the question of method 
has always been a vexed one ; indeed, from its very nature, it 
does not seem to admit of a definite and final answer. We 
may, of course, set forth, as laws of so-called " pure logic," or 
rules of " logical praxis," the compound results of psychological 
analysis and observation of the means actually employed to 
secure the growth of the particular sciences. Thus the prin- 
ciples which have come to be established for the discovery 
and verification of truth in respect to physical phenomena have 
been the subject of lengthy and learned treatises. These trea- 
tises have an undoubted value, whether they are more or less 
dominated by metaphysical considerations ; whether they are 
styled " Novum Organum," " Philosophy of the Inductive Sci- 
ences," or "Empirical Logic" and "Symbolic Logic." Yet the 
actual ascertainment and verifying of scientific truth proceeds 
with far less immediate dependence upon the theory of scien- 
tific method than we are accustomed to suppose. This remark 
is justified, even if we exclude the enormous influence from 
flashes of wit and flights of speculative genius, and from for- 
tunate accident, — things, the occurrence and effect of which 
it is difficult, if not impossible, to bring under verifiable law. 

The method of each one of the particular sciences is itself 
a matter of development. The actual growth of each of these 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 113 

sciences is dependent indeed upon the right use of the method 
peculiar to it ; but the question as to what method is right, 
is a question which can only be progressively settled by the 
development of the whole body of the science. The last half- 
century has scarcely made a greater change in the system of 
conclusions which constitute the substance of the physical and 
natural sciences — of physics and chemistry, of physiology and 
biology, and even of geology and astronomy — than it has 
accomplished in the means employed by them for ascertaining 
and testing their conclusions. In that particular science, for 
example, called "general nerve-physiology," the improved use 
of microscopy and micrometrical measurement, the new meth- 
ods of electrical stimulation, of the staining and tracing of 
nerve-tracts by Wallerian or other degeneration, or by photo- 
graphing successive cross-sections cut by the microtome, and 
of the study of reaction-time by the pendulum-myograph or 
other similar contrivance, etc., are both products and indispen- 
sable conditions of scientific advance. What is true of this 
subdivision of one of the natural sciences is true of them all. 
But suppose that we submit, as indeed we are compelled to 
do, our attempts to form a science of method to those general 
principles of procedure which hold true of all the inductive 
sciences. Suppose, that is to say, we by the general induc- 
tive method strive to arrive at a true science of the inductive 
method itself. We are then at once brought face to face with 
the same fact from another and somewhat different point of 
view. The history of these particular sciences shows, as has 
already been remarked, that the particular methods which they 
severally employ are subject to great and sometimes rapid 
changes. Moreover, the more highly developed as a specialty 
any of these sciences is found to be, the more complicated, and 
the less adapted to general use in scientific discovery, is its 
peculiar method. We can, to be sure, make a somewhat brave 
show of generalizing laws, or rather rules, of procedure for all 
the physical and natural sciences, by an inductive survey of 

8 



114 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

the entire field. But the wider our generalizations, and the 
more valuable as a psychological or logical study of the be- 
havior of mind as it faces the universe of material reality, the 
less appropriate and valuable are the same generalizations as 
indicative of an effective method for any one of the particular 
sciences. And if our generalizations for a universal science of 
method seem complete, they perhaps form a basis for only such 
practical exhortations as follow : " Observe, inquire, test, read, 
and think ; be patient, humble, but bold ; be docile, diligent, 
and yet free." 

Psychology — and with it, as a matter of course, all the 
psychological sciences — has been held to have a method es- 
sentially and peculiarly its own. This is the method of intro- 
spection, or internal observation, or reflective consciousness. 
Its motto is, " Know thyself," — that written over the portal 
at Delphi. The possibility of this method is involved in that 
fundamental fact which psychological analysis discovers, — the 
fact of self-consciousness ; it is also the fact which, having 
been discerned to be fundamental by psychological analysis, is 
given to philosophy as its fundamental problem, — the problem, 
namely, of the subject-object in the unity of self-consciousness. 

The method of introspection, although it was satisfactory to 
the "old psychology," has been recently subjected to a most 
searching criticism, largely on account of the growing influence 
of the physical sciences. It has not simply been complained 
of for its unscientific and indefinite character ; it has even been 
summarily dismissed as absurd and impossible. Nor has the 
complaint or sentence of dismissal come from the devotees of 
rival pursuits alone. In all this decrying of introspection as 
an effective or possible method of psychological science the pro- 
fessional psychologists have themselves been most prominent. 

It must be admitted that the method of introspection alone 
cannot construct an adequate science of the psychical phenom- 
ena. For the work of psychological investigation, like every 
work of genuine and thorough science, is not satisfied with 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. H5 

mere description and classification ; it requires explanation. 
But explanation necessitates above all the genetic method. 
Lipps l may be correct when he maintains, in accordance with 
the practice and claims of the " old psychology," that the 
means of knowledge in this science is that observation which 
is known as internal, — this because its objects are to be ob- 
served in that way only. In self-consciousness the Ego envis- 
ages those objects, the so-called states of consciousness, which 
contain in complex and involved forms the problems of psy- 
chological science. This truth will forever distinctly separate 
psychology from all forms of physical and natural science, not 
only as respects the nature of its objects and problems, but 
also as respects the method of the solution of the problems. 

But the view of Lipps is only half the truth. Volkmann von 
Volkmar 2 is also right, — not, indeed, when he speaks rather too 
disparagingly of both the inductive and the deductive method 
in psychology, but when he unites the essential features of 
both in what he calls the "genetic" method. In order that 
the student of psychology may establish a valid claim for his 
pursuit to a position among the sciences, he must be able to 
explain how the phenomena called "states of consciousness" 
arise, out of their elements, in accordance with the most gen- 
eral laws of that development which we are entitled to call the 
" life of the mind." The genesis of these states is not wholly, 
it is only very partially, if at all, in consciousness ; it cannot 
therefore be made the subject of introspection. 

To envisage the object already existent, and to envisage it as 
at once my object and my state, is not sufficient to explain the 
genesis of the object. The explanation (so far as it can be 
given by psychological science) of the genesis of any particu- 
lar state must be found, in part, in the bodily conditions, under 
the laws investigated by pyscho-physics and physiological psy- 
chology. It must also be found in the character of pre-exis- 

1 Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens, Bonn, 1883, p. 7f. 

2 Lehrbuch der Psychologie, 1884, i. 6 f. 



116 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

ting mental states — conscious or unconscious- — under the laws 
of so-called " association of ideas." The explanation of all 
states, regarding their purposive and organic development, is 
to be found in the existence and evolution of a living being 
(the mind, or soul), with a nature and acquired habits peculiarly 
its own. 

The method of psychological science is, therefore, peculiarly 
introspective and analytic of the envisaged phenomena called 
states of consciousness. But it is far broader and more effective 
than it could be if it were merely introspective. It pushes its 
analysis of the genesis of the phenomena as far back as possible, 
by the use of experimental methods and methods of external 
observation applied to the whole process of mental evolution 
(study of infants, of primitive man, and of the lower animals, — 
evolutionary and comparative psychology). It interprets the 
psychical life of the individual mind in the light of knowledge 
gathered concerning the psychical development of the race (the 
psychological study of literature, society, art, religion, etc.). It 
lays peculiar emphasis upon abnormal and pathological phe- 
nomena of the nervous and mental life (psychiatry, hypnotism, 
phenomena of insanity and of the criminal classes, etc.). It takes 
account of the rise and fall of particular forms of psychologi- 
cal theory (the history of psychology). It strives to transcend 
experience by the positing of hypothetical principles of expla- 
nation. But in the employment of all these methods this sci- 
ence differs in no important respect from the sciences which 
deal wholly with physical phenomena. It is only the use of 
introspection for the possession and, to some extent at least, 
for the analysis of its objects, which makes psychology, as 
respects its method, different from the other sciences. 

Far too much of mystery, and of the awe which is bred of 
the sense of mystery, has often surrounded the acquirement, 
use, and imparting of the secrets of scientific method. But 
especially esoteric does the subject of method at times appear 
in the pursuit and communication of philosophical discipline. 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. H7 

The sarcasm of Lotze, although directed against a particular 
attempt at scientific method in philosophy (the founding of 
metaphysics on a psychological analysis of our cognition), seems 
at times to apply equally well to all attempts at method in this 
domain. " The numerous dissertations directed to this end may 
be compared to the tuning of instruments before a concert, only 
that they are not so necessary or useful." " The constant whet- 
ting of the knife is tedious, if it is not proposed to cut anything 
with it." Method, indeed ' we may be inclined to exclaim when 
weary of reading criticisms and defences of the Hegelian Dialec- 
tic ; let but Hegel, or any one of his critics or supporters, intro- 
duce us to some new and vital truth in philosophy, and we will 
excuse him from any detailed explanation of the method by 
which he attains it. 

A remark like the foregoing, however petulantly or thought- 
lessly uttered, may call our attention more closely to the some- 
what peculiar relation in which the spirit and method of 
philosophy stand to the discovery and verification of its truths. 
The relation of philosophy to the particular sciences is such 
that it necessarily shares in the triumphs of their special me- 
thods; while its own method is, in some respects, an advance 
beyond them in the same direction with that which they have 
marked out. Since philosophy is not a physical science, it does 
not employ any one of the special methods of such science. It 
has no microscope, telescope, scales, crucible, or other physical 
apparatus of its own. Neither does it deal, in a primary and 
independent way, with meteorological, financial, sociological, or 
other statistics. And yet it considers none of these things, 
nothing that is human, foreign to itself. It allows to each 
particular science the way of discovering and verifying its 
facts and laws which is peculiar to it. In the triumphs of 
each science, through whatever means, philosophy rejoices 
sympathetically; for it feels itself thereby enriched. 

For the reception of the principles of the positive sciences, as 
distinguished from their discovery and proof, philosophy does 



118 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

not need to be expert in the use of special scientific methods. 
But in the most general scientific method, and in that spirit — 
called the " scientific spirit " — which characterizes the modern 
pursuit of knowledge, philosophy needs to have a large share. 
In this broad and somewhat indefinite meaning of the words, 
its spirit and its method are distinctly scientific. Indeed, since 
its subject matter is not confined to any one of these sciences, 
but embraces them all, and since its generalizations reach beyond 
those of any particular science and cover the field of experience 
possessed by all, philosophy must be, in some sort, more scien- 
tific than any positive science can be. It must carry the spirit 
and general method of scientific research into the regions of the 
most subtile and yet complex analysis, and of the loftiest and 
most comprehensive synthesis. For it is of the very essence of 
philosophy to be the highest and purest activity of reason itself. 
The special relations of philosophy to psychology are such 
as require in the pursuit of the former the extension of that 
method of reflective analysis which is peculiar to the latter. 
Each of the sciences of nature furnishes, as material for further 
treatment by philosophy, certain presuppositions upon which, 
as upon fundamental postulates, all its positive results are 
obtained. The collection of these presuppositions and the at- 
tempt, in an external way, to arrange them into a well-articu- 
lated system, is only the beginning of the work of philosophy. 
All these very presuppositions are, not simply working hypo- 
theses of the particular sciences, but modes of the behavior, and 
so principles of the constitution and development, of human 
reason. As soon as this truth is once apprehended with regard 
to them, the method of their consideration ceases to be purely 
historical and founded on external observation. The world of 
" Things " is properly treated by the physical and natural sci- 
ences by the method of external observation. And — to use, 
with a somewhat different meaning, the language of Kant l — 

1 Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental Dialectic, Consideration on the 
whole of Pure Psychology, etc. Max Midler's Translation, p. 334. 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 119 

" so long as we connect (internal and external) phenomena with 
each other, as mere representations in our experience, there is 
nothing irrational." We may even " hypostasize the external 
phenomena, looking upon them as no longer representations, 
but as things existing by themselves and outside us, with the 
same quality in which they exist inside us ; " and this with- 
out vitiating the results of scientific observation and analy- 
sis. But as soon as we raise the inquiry as to the ultimate 
grounds and validity of such connection and hypostasis, we 
require the use of the critical method. But the critical method 
(in the philosophical meaning of the word " critical ") is not 
the method of the physical sciences. It is an extension of the 
psychological method ; it is the method of ultimate reflective 
analysis. This method philosophy is compelled to employ, be- 
cause it regards all the principles postulated by the positive 
sciences as " moments " and modes of the being and behavior 
of reason itself. 

The analytic part of philosophical discipline concerns chiefly 
the collection and critical sifting of its material. This material 
comes from the particular sciences ; it consists of the principles 
presupposed or ascertained by them all. The material, as con- 
sidered by philosophy, is all of the rational order ; for it is 
reason's world, both internal and external, which the material 
constitutes. But without the use of synthesis the material 
cannot be considered as forming part of a rational system ; it 
cannot without speculative construction be shown to constitute 
a cosmos, — an orderly and beautiful whole. Now, in the case 
of the particular sciences it is the rational presuppositions, 
which are accepted but not critically explored by these sci- 
ences, that serve as the ground of their unity. The principles 
of material Eeality, called " atoms," being Existent in Space and 
Time, having Quantity, Quality, and Eelation by way of " at- 
traction " and " repulsion," and, though themselves permanent 
Subject of states, undergoing Change under Law, give Unity to 
the otherwise diverse phenomena of the science of molecular 



120 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

physics. These principles make the disconnected sequences of 
our experiences with " Things " into a science. 

Attention has of late been frequently called to the fact that 
all the sciences of nature — biology included — are becoming 
more and more branches or departments of the one inclusive 
science of molecular physics. In our judgment, there is a long 
and weary road yet to travel before the goal to which this tend- 
ency points the way can be definitely attained. But of the ex- 
istence of the tendency, and of its marked beneficial effect upon 
the methods of the particular sciences, there can be no doubt. 
We now refer to this tendency in order to show that the syn- 
theses of experience for which these sciences stand are made 
possible only through those postulated principles which it is the 
business of analytical philosophy to discover and criticise. 

Empirical psychology has been shown to have its collection 
of postulates and empirical laws, with the further treatment of 
which philosophy is concerned. The postulates of psychologi- 
cal science are, in part, those of the general science of physics ; 
but more particularly they are those of the science of human 
physiology. They are also, in part, certain postulates of the 
existence of so-called mind, with a nature (unity, identity, at- 
tributes, and accidents) and a development of a peculiar kind. 
They include also potential and actual relations of the differ- 
ent beings, thus existent, to one another, to the beings called 
atoms, and to certain other potentially or actually existent 
beings. These presuppositions are indispensable to give unity 
to that science which deals with psychical processes. Without 
them the postulated beings called minds would be supposed out 
of all relation — were that indeed even concei viable — with 
that work with which the physical sciences deal. 

Now, these most general principles of all the particular sci- 
ences, both physical and psychological, are the points from 
which the synthesis of philosophy takes, as it were, its flight. 
Supposing them all to have been subjected to the most search- 
ing critical analysis, the attempt must then be made to unite 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 121 

them into a rational system. This attempt must of course 
proceed by use of the synthetic method. It is an attempt at 
the highest and most complete synthesis of principles, based 
upon the most thorough and exhaustive reflective analysis. 

But can this attempt at supreme synthesis, which it is of the 
very nature of philosophy to make, itself be made without use 
of any presuppositions whatsoever ? The answer to this ques- 
tion has already been indicated in the discussion of the defi- 
nition of philosophy and of its relation to the particular 
sciences. More light will be thrown upon it as we consider 
the spirit of philosophy, and the principal attitudes of mind 
(dogmatism, scepticism, criticism) which are possible toward 
the ultimate problems of philosophy. It is enough at present 
to say that philosophical thinking, in its analysis and attempted 
synthesis into rational system of all the principles of the par- 
ticular sciences, is itself compelled to carry with it two postu- 
lates. One of these is the ground of that confidence which 
reason persistently has in itself. Philosophy — in the language 
of Lotze * — postulates " the existence in the world at large of 
a ' truth,' which affords a sure object for cognition." Agnosti- 
cism, in so far as it is agnosticism, can therefore never be a 
philosophy. Nor can philosophy ever remain satisfied with 
an agnostic system, — if, indeed, the very words " system of 
agnostic philosophy " be not in themselves self-contradictory. 
And, furthermore, the scepticism "without motif" which aims 
to thrust forth and hold in position permanently the inquiry, 
whether, after all, reason may not be compelled, after its best 
and supreme efforts, to be self-deceived through and through, 
is inconsistent with that postulated self-confidence of reason, 
out of which philosophy springs. 

The other presupposition which necessarily enters into every 
effort of philosophy, of a synthetic and constructive kind, 
concerns a unity, of some sort, of ultimate Eeality. A uni- 
fying principle, or group of interconnected principles, is of 

1 Outlines of Logic and of the Encyc. of Philosophy, Translation, p. 147. 



122 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

necessity the postulate upon which the synthesis of philos- 
ophy proceeds. Its further task, as constituting a rational 
system, is the discovery and verifying of the nature of such 
principle. What the principle is, philosophy may find itself 
unable fully to comprehend, or — it is at least conceivable — 
unable even to conjecture in any definitive and defensible way. 
But that the principle is, it persistently presupposes, and must 
presuppose until it is ready to relinquish all claim to rightful 
existence for itself as even a rational striving for truth. That 
the unifying principle is some really Existent, is also an insep- 
arable part of this fundamental postulate of all philosophical 
discipline. What this really Existent is, and whether we may 
define it or not, are questions to which the different schools of 
philosophy give different responses. But that one really Ex- 
istent is the philosophical ground and explanation of that 
unity in manifestation of the world, which the particular 
sciences both discover and presuppose, is a postulate wrought 
into the very nature of philosophy. It is a postulate springing 
from the very being of reason itself. 

The technical method of philosophy cannot, however, be 
separated from the spirit of philosophy, which imparts to it 
life, guidance, and vigor. On this account it is, in part, that 
philosophy is less technical in method than are any of the 
particular sciences ; indeed, so far as it can be said to have 
a technical method at all, the spirit controls the method much 
more than can be the case with pure science, as such, or with 
the entire body of the inductive sciences. 

The spirit of philosophy is essentially freedom, — the exer- 
cise of reason absolutely untrammelled by extraneous bonds or 
obligations. As Chalybaus has said, 1 that free critical move- 
ment which prevails in all the sciences is essentially philo- 
sophical. In this regard modern philosophy, of its very nature, 
surpasses modern science in what is common and essential to 

1 Fundamentalphilosophie, ein Versuch das System der Philosophic auf ein 
Realprincip zu griinden, p. 1 f. 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 123 

both. How this freedom may be not only compatible with, 
but conducive to, the acceptance of the truths of revelation, 
and the docile reception and performance of many merely con- 
ventional duties and practices, need not concern us at the 
present time. But if the mind of man is even to make the 
attempt to subject to an ultimate analysis, and to construct 
into a systematic whole by a supreme synthesis, the principles 
presupposed or ascertained by the particular sciences, it must 
possess this absolute philosophical freedom. 

The freedom of philosophy includes the power and the obli- 
gation to examine critically all the presuppositions of every 
particular form of human knowledge. It includes also the 
right of reason to question searchingly, and with the utmost 
possible candor, its own structure and processes, — their nature 
and their validity. This right extends even to those postulates 
of all reason on which philosophy is itself founded; namely, the 
confidence of reason in itself as able to attain to truth, and its 
metaphysical faith in that unity of objective Eeality whose 
nature and relations to experience philosophy investigates. To 
be sure, in the exercise of its freedom to the fullest extent for 
the investigation, not only of the principles of all the particular 
sciences, but also of its own being and life, reason finds itself 
necessarily limited by the laws of its own being and life. As 
thinking subject, reason is one with itself as object of its own 
thought. The freedom of philosophy does not then imply the 
possession by reason of the power to be more or less than rea- 
son. We do not wait to call the grayhound free (to borrow a 
figure of speech) until he has attained the power to outstrip 
his own shadow. 

The history of philosophy shows that none of the particular 
systems of philosophy have realized to the fullest possible 
extent this inherent freedom of the philosophical movement 
of reason. The free spirit is, however, especially characteristic 
of modern philosophy. During the Middle Ages — it is cus- 
tomary to say — the principle of authority (a distinctively 



124 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

nnphilosophical spirit) was regnant in both theology and phi- 
losophy. But the method of Descartes emphasizes the freedom 
of philosophy, although the philosophy of Descartes secured but 
few of the choicest results of this freedom. In the first of his 
" Meditations " this thinker exercises, to the fullest extent, the 
freedom of philosophic doubt. All things may be doubted ex- 
cept the fact that I doubt (dubito) ; or, since doubting is a species 
of thinking, except the fact that I think (cogito). Like Archi- 
medes, says Descartes in his second Meditation, if I may find 
one fixed point, one absolutely indubitable proposition, I may 
indulge in great hopes of moving the whole world of thought. 
Such a proposition the celebrated Cartesian maxim is supposed 
by its author to be {Cogito, ergo sum). From this point of stand- 
ing, in the subsequent books of his work on Philosophy, the 
so-called founder of the modern era of philosophical thinking 
seeks to demonstrate the existence of God and the existence 
of the soul as an entity separable from the body. From this 
root, that itself sprung out of the spirit of philosophic freedom, 
there developed a hardened stalk of philosophical dogma, — 
rational cosmology, rational psychology, rational theology, — 
which the critical philosophy was destined to dissolve. 

The appearance of Kant's " Critique of Pure Pieason " marks 
another era in the development of the spirit of philosophical 
freedom. As critique it summons pure reason, in its dogmatic 
use, to appear before the critical eye of a higher and judicial 
reason ; it proposes anew to exercise the rights of the philo- 
sophical freedom of doubt ; it begins and proceeds with a uni- 
versal mistrust of all the synthetic propositions of the existing 
metaphysics, — the very systems which had developed from the 
Cartesian philosophy. But the still more modern exercise of 
the same freedom in analysis which Kant himself employed 
and provoked in all his successors, to the end of time, discovers 
many unanalyzcd and doubtful presuppositions in his critical 
philosophy. For Kant himself, as Herbart and others have 
pointed out, assumed in a quite uncritical way almost the entire 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 125 

Aristotelian and Wolffian theory of the mind. The existence 
of a body of synthetic truths a 'priori, in physics as well as in 
mathematics, is another Kantian presupposition, which appar- 
ently was taken in a wholly uncritical way. This presupposi- 
tion has not improperly been called "the irpoiTov tyevSo? from 
which, with great consistency, the whole system of ' Criticism ' 
grew up." 1 The critical freedom of philosophy must still insist, 
in the name of Kant, upon its right to doubt and to analyze, in 
a more ultimate manner, all the presuppositions of the pure and 
applied physical sciences. Before this critical spirit the axioms 
of the Euclidean geometry and of the higher mathematics of 
modern times, as well as all the recent attempts to erect the 
Lite and often hasty generalizations of physics (e. g., the so- 
called law of the conservation and correlation of energy) into 
the place of rational and unchanging principles of all reality, 
must appear and be judged. Such principles may in time 
become so established for the particular sciences as that these 
sciences do not feel free to question them. But it is of the 
very essence and life of philosophy to make them perpetually, 
so often as occasion requires, the subjects of the freest sceptical 
and critical examination. For the freedom of philosophy is a 
freedom from all unquestioned presuppositions whatsoever. 

The spirit of philosophy is also absolute devotion to the truth. 
" It is truth alone I seek," says Locke. This is the attitude of 
mind toward its problems, and toward all attempts at the treat- 
ment of those problems, which is essential to philosophy. The 
character of the truth which philosophy seeks, with an absolute 
devotion to truth, is such as to render its method different from 
that of the particular sciences. Since it is not technically cor- 
rect statement of matters of fact which constitutes philosophic 
truth, it is not technical correctness of method in ascertaining 
the truth, upon which philosophy chiefly insists. The student 
of the sciences of nature or of mind must indeed have a su- 
preme devotion to truth, otherwise his method of seeking truth 
1 Comp. Ueberweg, A History of Philosophy, ii. 161, note. 



126 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

will not be most thoroughly scientific. This is so, even if the 
subject of investigation be, for example, the effect of repeated 
acts of stimulation upon the nuclei of the ganglionic cells of a 
frog, or the nature of the connection between those cells and 
the ultimate elements of the nerve-fibres running thereto. The 
observer in astronomy strives, in the interests of truth, to recog- 
nize and eliminate the errors arising from his " personal equa- 
tion." But in all the particular sciences the problems are likely 
to be so technical, and the methods of examination and solution 
so technically fixed, that the conscious love and devotion to 
truth alone is comparatively inconspicuous. With philosophy 
this is not so, or at least it is not so to the same degree. Its 
problems concern the highest verities ; such are the nature in 
reality and the significance of the system of physical things, the 
nature and significance of finite mind, the ground and uncon- 
ditioned value of the good and the beautiful, the being and 
predicates of the Absolute, and the fundamental rational rela- 
tions existent among all these forms of reality. For the solu- 
tion of these problems its one instrument is Thought, — or 
rather (may we not say ?), the most comprehensive and harmo- 
nious activity and development of self-conscious rational life. 
The use of this instrument, the method of philosophy, is reflec- 
tive analysis, followed by the highest synthesis of the elements 
discovered by analysis. Devotion to the truth is, then, pre- 
eminently a self-conscious impulse and guide, an intelligent 
spirit controlling a somewhat indefinite and untechnical method, 
in all philosophical discipline. 

That this spirit of freedom and self-conscious devotion to 
truth alone has been exclusively, or even pre-eminently, char- 
acteristic of philosophy, it is not our intention to claim. 
Doubtless there is ground for the complaint, emphasized with 
such vehemence and bitterness by Schopenhauer, that the profes- 
sional teachers of philosophy (the Fachprofessoren, the teachers 
of a Kathederphilosophie) have not infrequently had an eye 
on their own fame and advancement, or on the security of their 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 127 

tenure of office, and their standing with the appointing power, 
rather than both eyes, with a single heart, solely on the truth. 
It is a fact that many of its most renowned and loyal stu- 
dents, from Descartes to Hartmann, have not been in the 
" profession " of philosophy. But both the complaint and the 
fact only serve to make clearer the truth touching that spirit 
which philosophy pre-eminently requires. And if we consider 
that philosophy, like theology, and unlike most of the work 
concerned in the advancement of the empirical sciences, affects 
with its conclusions the profoundest and most cherished con- 
victions of the individual and of society, and seems to support 
or to jeopard what men generally hold most important and 
most clear ; and that it therefore places both the thinker and 
his audience under the most severe conditions for the testing 
of character, — an historical claim may be established, we 
think, for the actual superiority, and the vast superiority, of 
philosophy to either science or theology in its simple, un- 
swerving loyalty to truth, and to truth alone. 

The spirit of philosophy is humility and teachableness min- 
gled with independence. In this spirit also the student of the 
physical sciences and the student of philosophy are called to 
friendly rivalry by the very nature of their pursuits. The atti- 
tude of the great discoverers in physics and biology has fitly 
been that of the docile mind. This attitude has placed them in 
awe and expectancy before the problems whose solution would 
increase our knowledge of that mysterious totality which science 
calls " Nature," but philosophy calls the " Absolute," and faith 
calls God. For, indeed, the truly great discoverers in physical 
science have been possessed by the philosophical spirit, and 
skilled in the use of the philosophical method. The investiga- 
tion, by technical means, of minute subdivisions of physical 
science, makes relatively little demand upon the investigator for 
the docile and humble mind. The botanist may count the sta- 
mens and pistils of some newly found plant, may mark its 
leaves as oblate or spatulate, may classify it by these and other 



128 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

tokens, and trace its genesis as related to other most closely 
allied forms, — all this, with small regard for the spirit which 
controls his procedure. But when he uses this particular plant 
as an example by which to rise to the higher generalizations of 
his science, and even to link that science with the science of all 
life, or perhaps to throw a ray of light toward the problem of 
the "nature" of that Reality in which all living things exist, he 
needs the inspiration of the philosophic spirit. 

The humility and teachableness of philosophy are of use in 
two principal directions. The very business of him who pur- 
sues its studies is with the highest ultimate mysteries. The 
seemingly simplest thing, the most ordinary occurrence, is in 
his sight a factor or moment in these mysteries. The " meanest 
flower that blows " may excite the scientific botanist only to 
new efforts at classification ; but philosophically considered, it 
may open up all the " seven riddles of the world," and suggest 
the reconstruction of aesthetics and theology. The student of 
philosophy lives constantly in the presence of the sublime and 
awful mystery of Reality. The humble and docile spirit toward 
this presence alone befits the character of his pursuit. 

But in these days philosophy especially requires for its culti- 
vation the spirit of humility and teachableness before the dis- 
coveries of the particular sciences. Its pride has been to 
construct the world, too often in more or less nearly complete 
disregard of the most comprehensive and verifiable knowledge 
touching the actual mode and laws of its constitution. But 
its true and final aim, as Lotze said, is not to " construct " the 
world, but to " explain " it. This business it shares with the 
particular sciences. Only philosophy, however, seeks the most 
ultimate possible explanation of the whole world, while the 
sciences strive to explain, as interrelated under uniform se- 
quences, particular groups of its phenomena. As science then 
is humble and docile toward the facts of nature upon which it 
depends for the generalizations which constitute its empirical 
truths, so does it become philosophy to be humble and docile 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OP PHILOSOPHY. 129 

toward those scientific truths upon which it is dependent for its 
higher truth. The truth of philosophy lies involved in the 
truths of science. Without the teachable mind toward these 
latter truths it has no means of acquiring material upon 
which to build, as upon a verifiable basis, its structure of 
supreme and rational truth. And, conversely, Haeckel's com- 
plaint of " the lack of philosophical culture which characterizes 
most of the physicists of the day," who " cherish the strange illu- 
sion that they can construct the edifice of natural science from 
facts without a philosophical connection of the same," is but a 
fulfilment of the prophecy of Herbart: "It cannot be otherwise 
than that the neglect of philosophy should result in a frivolous 
or perverted treatment of the fundamental principles of all 
the sciences." This relation of reciprocal dependence between 
philosophy and the particular sciences it is especially necessary 
for the former to incorporate into the spirit and method of 
its pursuit. 

But, on the other hand, the spirit of philosophy partakes of a 
critical independence toward the particular sciences. It does 
not even receive the material upon which its existence depends 
in an uncritical and credulous way. When physics claims for its 
laws an a priori origin and an unconditioned validity, philo- 
sophy is competent to examine these claims. When biology 
attempts to lift the principle of evolution from the rank of a 
working hypothesis and give it the place of an ultimate general- 
ization envisaging the nature of all Reality, philosophy claims 
the rights of a judge and arbiter in this domain. It knows, as 
empirical physics and biology cannot, what is necessary to so- 
called a priori origin, to unconditioned validity, and to the right 
to act as interpreter of the nature of ultimate Eeality. 

The spirit, which is humility and boldness combined, is at 
present especially necessary in the philosophical treatment of 
recent empirical generalizations in biology and psychology. 
The next great synthesis in philosophy will undoubtedly rest 
largely upon the basis of these generalizations. Already the 

9 



130 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

speculation of Hartmann has made itself captivating to many "by- 
its obviously extensive use of the inductive method, in a spirit 
of deference to these sciences. We believe both the method and 
the conclusions of this writer to be defective, as judged by the 
most approved scientific standards. But who that is intelli- 
gently interested does not hear with desire and hope the Mace- 
donian cry made to " synthetic philosophy " by modern biology 
and modern psychology? What wonderful new systems of 
speculative thinking may not arise in answer to this cry ? The 
doings of bioplasm, the laws of the genesis and growth of plant 
and animal organisms, the relations of specific and generic forms 
and functions, the origin and evolution of the psychical pro- 
cesses of the lower animals, "unconscious cerebration" and 
" double consciousness," the phenomena of hypnotism, trance, 
and insanity, the principles of heredity, suggestion, and spon- 
taneity, in art, in therapeutics, and in religious and .social 
construction, — all these and many other strange, new mani- 
festations of the presence and power of that universal anima 
mundi, that One in whose life and being all living beings are, 
await the more mature and strenuous efforts of constructive 
philosophy. 

The spirit of philosophy is also infinite patience, both in the 
collection of material and in that analytic and synthetic think- 
ing which constructs the material into a rational system. And 
surely the student of philosophy has need of patience in the 
collection of material. As a writer 1 on this subject has said : 
" It is the activity of the polymathist, one might almost say of 
the panmathist, which is required as preliminary." But the 
patience of philosophy, in the collection and preparation of its 
material, does not lead to the use of the same method as that 
employed by particular sciences to this end. For the material of 
philosopby does not primarily consist in facts ; nor is its method 
directed to the discovery and verification of bare relations, in 

1 Schaarschmidt, in Philos. Monatsh., 1877, p. 5. 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 131 

fact, among the different groups of phenomena. Its material 
consists rather of those principles that are presupposed in or 
ascertained by the use of the methods belonging to all the 
sciences. The student of philosophy needs, therefore, such 
knowledge of these sciences as will give him the power to 
state and comprehend the meaning of these principles. It is 
only as related to this need that he must also have an acquain- 
tance with the details of scientific fact and scientific method. 

Patience in analytic and synthetic thinking is also indispen- 
sable to the method of philosophy. As the writer just quoted 
goes on to declare : " And yet the positive, so-called exact 
knowledge is the least of the things required ; for it is not 
knowledge which constitutes the philosopher, but thinking, 
concentrated, thorough, and methodically trained. To this the 
sum-total of scientific attainment is but a premise with which 
it starts in its search for the last abstractions and highest 
ideas." 

For reasons like the foregoing the dependence of philosophy 
upon the moral and spiritual characteristics of the philosophical 
thinker is especially close. Theory and history alike emphasize 
this truth. Here, far more than in any other form of rational 
endeavor, the method is the spirit of the man. To pursue any 
of the particular sciences (even empirical psychology) in their 
modern form without knowledge of technical method and use 
of instruments technically developed, would be difficult indeed. 
But it is the man himself, as a rational, self-conscious life, 
which, in philosophy, chiefly determines the right and success- 
ful use of method. Acquaintance with the science of the sen- 
sible may awaken an interest, but rational self-consciousness 
must also be aroused, and confidence in the Supersensible must 
be systematically unfolded and defended, in order that philo- 
sophical truth may result. 1 The completed system of philosophy 
is an ideal which will never be realized ; but the contribution 

1 Corap. Lichtenfels, Lehrtrach zur Einleitung in die Philosophie, p. 5. 



132 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

toward it which every workman can make depends in no small 
degree upon his wealth of experience, maturing into character. 

One other factor in the very nature of philosophy is influen- 
tial in fixing the method of its pursuit. It is defined as a pro- 
gressive rational system. To repeat words already cited from 
Kuno Fischer, — it is the progressive self-knowledge of the 
human mind. The bearing of this truth upon the question of 
philosophic method is at once obvious. The method of philos- 
ophy implies for its successful employment a knowledge of the 
past and present developments of philosophy. It has even 
been said of late that " philosophy is the history of philos- 
ophy." Seriously and literally taken, this statement is inexact 
and inadequate. But it emphasizes with scarcely exaggerated 
strength an important truth touching the true method of its 
pursuit. It sounds a much-needed call to a community of in- 
telligent efforts in the consideration of philosophical problems. 
For here, as in so many other matters, it is true, when rightly 
understood, that the history of the race and the history of the 
individual follow the same type. A process involving the con- 
struction, criticism, and disintegration and subsequent improved 
reconstruction of the results of reflective thinking has gone on 
in the evolution of the human mind. This process is the 
world-wide historical method of man's progressive rational 
knowledge. No individual inquirer now undertakes for the 
first time the ultimate analysis of the fundamental elements 
of philosophy, or the supreme synthesis of them into a rational 
system. Every individual thinker lives in and of the thought 
of his race. 

The study of the history of philosophy is, however, a neces- 
sary propaedeutic of philosophy rather than a necessary charac- 
teristic of the philosophical method as such. Eclecticism is 
not a method in philosophy ; neither is the historical method 
peculiar to or distinctive of philosophy. The choice of the 
materials which are to enter into any philosophical system, as 
well as the choice of the principle of their combination, requires 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. I33 

guidance from conceptions which rule over all historical sys- 
tems. The right shaping of these conceptions cannot be gained 
in a merely historical way ; it requires special skill in reflective 
analysis and in that higher speculative synthesis which is of 
the very nature of philosophical system. 

The history of philosophy is an indispensable help to the 
modern student of philosophical discipline in the definition of 
his problems. It shows him what great and permanent forms 
of questioning have occupied the self-conscious reason of man. 
These are the same problems as those which are immediately 
presented to him by scientific psychology, as pursued in the 
most comprehensive and critical way. Moreover, the answers 
which have been given to these problems by the successive 
great masters and more prominent schools of philosophy serve us 
as stimulus, warning, and guide. The survey of them excites the 
laudable ambition to become one of that band of workmen who 
have assumed the burden of the effort to solve — or at least to 
lighten — " those riddles by which the mind of man is oppressed 
in life, and about which we are all compelled to hold some 
view or other, in order to be able to live at all." History also 
warns each new explorer against making the old mistakes in 
their old form ; and it points out new by-paths or modes of 
following in the better beaten tracks that may possibly lead 
into a region of clearer light. The study of the formation, 
criticism, disintegration, and reconstruction of philosophical 
systems, and the comprehensive and sympathetic acquaintance 
with the whole course of speculative thought, is therefore a 
constant and necessary accompaniment, a perpetual and indis- 
pensable propaedeutic, of philosophical discipline. 

But the history of philosophy is not philosophy, — if by this 
it be meant that to know this history, however comprehensively 
and minutely, is sufficient for the student of philosophy; or 
that the history will organize itself into a system of consistent 
and verifiable philosophical truths. Nor is the study of history 
the sole method of philosophical study. It is probably not 



134 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

even the chief preparatory discipline. Were we called upon 
to choose between it and that other propaedeutic which consists 
in the comprehensive scientific investigation of the phenomena 
of mind, we should probably (though regretfully) prefer the 
latter. 

Still further, and strictly speaking, historical study is 
not an integral part of the technical method of philosophy ; 
although by it the material which consists in past results of 
philosophizing is gathered and displayed. But it still remains 
material needing treatment by renewed rational effort of each 
advancing age. The method of such treatment is the method 
of philosophy ; it is not itself historical, but the combination of 
analysis and synthesis in a peculiar way. 

By help of the foregoing considerations we may define more 
precisely the technical method of philosophy. It is, first of 
all, the method of reflective analysis directed upon the prin- 
ciples presupposed or ascertained by the particular sciences. 
This is, so far as the presuppositions of these sciences are con- 
cerned, an extension of the modified psychological method. In 
the pursuit of psychological science we reach a point where the 
historical description of the genesis and development of psychi- 
cal processes is seen to imply and depend upon certain presup- 
positions that have not as yet themselves been subjected to 
critical examination. The psychological method aims, there- 
fore, at a more complete and fundamental analysis ; it passes 
over, that is, into the philosophy of mind. When this analysis 
has been made, so far as the material of psychology is con- 
cerned, it is discovered that all the other particular sciences 
also imply and depend upon presuppositions. These presup- 
positions also are to be subjected to the method of reflective 
analysis. They are thus seen to be essentially the same as 
those to which we have already been introduced in the philo- 
sophical study of mind. They appear, therefore, as those uni- 
versal modes of the behavior of reason (whether it be engaged 
with the subject-object called " Self," or with the object-object 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 135 

called a world of " Things,") which analytical philosophy aims 
to discover, criticise, display, and defend. 

Philosophy, however, does not undertake to build its supreme 
synthesis upon presuppositions alone. It finds, in surveying 
the fields of the particular sciences wherein its material lies, a 
great number of principles which are the results of the widest 
inductions during centuries of the race's experience. It can in 
no wise vindicate its claim to the title " science of the sciences," 
or " universal science," without taking these principles also into 
the account. Only in this way can it be sufficiently compre- 
hensive ; only in this way can it remain in touch with a living 
and developing knowledge of all Eeality. Only in this way, 
too, can it avoid the complaint and answer the demands of the 
students of the particular sciences. 1 But it surely cannot 
receive these principles, inductively ascertained by the appro- 
priate scientific instrumentalities, without subjecting them to 
its own peculiar method of reflective analysis. They, too, are 
regarded by it as preliminary results of the activity of that rea- 
son whose highest self-knowledge it claims to represent. The 
inductive principles of astronomy, physics, biology, and psycho- 
logy must be interpreted by its thinking, to see what higher 
significance and value in reality they may implicate and repre- 
sent. These, too, it is the business of analytical philosophy to 
receive from the particular sciences ; but also to criticise, un- 
fold, interpret, and defend, — before the tribunal of reason in 
its highest jurisdiction. 

It is the feeling that this humble, patient, candid work of an- 
alytical philosophy should precede and justify all constructive 
and speculative attempts, which has called forth the demand 
that philosophy in general be "scientific" and "inductive." 
It can never be scientific in the sense of using the technical 
instruments and forms of experimentation belonging to the 
methods of the particular sciences. It must, however, be 

1 Compare, for example, Riehl, Philosophischer Eiitici^mus, iii. 84 f and 101 f. 



136 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

scientific in the sense of obtaining by research from the sci- 
ences, as its own material, the general truths they have 
established. It must also vindicate its claim to the same title 
by what Schleiermacher called " scientific thinking." It must 
submit all its conclusions to that testing which follows a per- 
petually enlarging acquaintance with the generalizations of 
the particular sciences. Its peculiar method of thus being 
scientific is the method of reflective analysis. 

Nor can philosophy be inductive, if by this be understood 
the generalization of laws from observed facts and their veri- 
fication by prediction and experimentation. This inductive 
growth of the knowledge of Eeality it intrusts with confidence 
to the particular sciences. But it does not venture to proceed 
with its system-making in a voluntary or indolent disregard, 
either total or partial, of any principles inductively established. 
It is inductive in the sense of being eager to learn these gene- 
ralizations of the particular sciences, that it may — having re- 
ceived them with candor — subject them to its own method 
of a more ultimate analysis. This is the truth in the capti- 
vating plea of Hartmann and others to establish, in a superior 
manner, a so-called inductive philosophy. 1 But much of the 
benefit claimed for this method is lost by its advocates (notably 
so by Hartmann) because the boasted induction is concluded 
without sufficient thoroughness in the use of both the scientific 
and the philosophical methods. The philosophical treatment 
of the phenomena of reflex-action, of so-called instinct in man 
and the lower animals, of conscious or unconscious psychical 
processes, normal and abnormal, does indeed demand the 
"inductive" method. But the philosopher who makes his 
own hasty generalizations of laws directly from the phenom- 
ena may be injuring rather than helping the cause of philos- 
ophy, by the use of what he is pleased to call the inductive 
method. 

1 See Philosophie des Unbewussten, 7th ed., Berlin, 1876, i. 5 f., and English 
Translation, Philosophy of the Unconscious, i. 6 f. 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 137 

Let it be repeated, then : The application of thorough reflec- 
tive analysis to the principles of the particular sciences is the 
so-called inductive and scientific method in philosophy. Only 
by understanding this can we give to both science and philos- 
ophy their respective rights, and so maintain their intercourse 
in relations of mutual dependence and helpfulness. This view- 
includes all that is true, and excludes all that is erroneous, in 
the attempt to set up the method called " scientific," " induc- 
tive," or " cosmological," in philosophical study. 

But analytical philosophy is not the sum-total of philosophy ; 
indeed, it cannot, from the very nature of the case, be a sum- 
total at all. The impulses of reason, out of which philosophy 
springs, are toward a unifying of knowledge, or rather, of all 
experience. Philosophy requires, therefore, the freest and high- 
est use of the method of synthesis. It is theoretically and 
speculatively constructive, of natural right and as in duty 
bound. And in truth there is no department of scientific 
knowledge also where analysis alone can supply the demands 
for satisfactory interpretation of the facts. Reason works syn- 
thetically in the organization of ordinary experience and in the 
construction of scientific system. It postulates for the savage 
and the boor some sort of unity in reality — a me and other 
" things," and the two related — as the basis of the otherwise 
disconnected phenomena. Science broadens and defines this 
postulate, in the many different modifications of it with which 
its particular departments are concerned. But philosophy 
listens to the profoundest intimations of reason, and endeavors 
to conceive and explicate all that which, concerning the being 
and life of this Unity of Eeality, both ordinary experience and 
the particular sciences imply. Its method is, therefore, syn- 
thetical, in the supreme and most comprehensive way. 

Now, it is to the legitimate and inalienable rights of this 
method that the existence and value of all the great philosophi- 
cal systems called "absolute" must be ascribed. The deductive 
method in philosophy, so far as it is legitimate and valu- 



138 SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 

able, must be vindicated in the light of the same truth. .For 
every system of philosophical truths, every " synthetic philos- 
ophy," is at once called upon to approve itself in two directions. 
These directions are indicated in two questions. Can you show 
that your synthesis contradicts none of the principles of science 
as subjected to reflective analysis ; but that, on the contrary, 
it comprehends and takes due account of them all ? Can you 
use the synthesis itself deductively for the interpretation, in 
the light of the Unity of Reality, of those principles of the 
particular sciences upon which it claims to be based ? 

Fichte desired to make his supreme synthesis in the interests 
of the interpretation and completion of the Kantian analysis. 
Schelling found this synthesis of Fichte one-sided, and en- 
deavored to supplement it by the addition of the neglected 
aspects of Reality, — thus the better to understand the riddles 
of the world of matter and mind. Hegel complained that the 
principle of Schelling's synthesis was, as it were, " shot out of 
a gun ; " by the dialectical method he would himself expose in 
its completeness the nature of that Reality in which Being and 
Thought are one. We find fault with none of these great 
thinkers because they have used the method of all constructive 
philosophy. But by the accuracy and comprehensiveness of 
the analysis upon which their synthesis was based, and by the 
power which the supreme principles, reached by the synthesis, 
have deductively to interpret the particular principles discovered 
by the analysis, their speculative systems must stand or fall. 

Since the great synthetic movement of the Hegelian school 
reached its highest development and declined, the analytical 
study of particular problems and the researches of history have 
mainly occupied the attention of students of philosophy. Signs 
of new great attempts at system-making are in the air. Indeed, 
Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Herbert Spencer, if not also 
Lotze and Wundt, have undertaken to base a synthetic phi- 
losophy upon the consideration of principles derived from the 
particular sciences. 



SPIRIT AND METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 139 

Fault is not to be found with Schopenhauer because he " pos- 
ited " a supreme principle, — namely, Will, — and attempted to 
treat by deductive procedure from it all the different depart- 
ments of philosophical discipline. But we consider the synthe- 
sis founded on a lame and incomplete analysis, and lamentably 
defective as respects its power of interpreting the world of 
reality made known by science. Its crude postulating of a 
principium individuationis, and of Platonic ideas that are out 
of all comprehensible relation in reality with the One Will, and 
its consequent patent failure to explain what it sets out to 
explain, rather than the fact that it employs the method of 
synthesis, furnish grounds for its rejection. For it is not the 
deductive, or speculative, or synthetic method, as such, which 
we deprecate in philosophy ; it is its unsuccessful result in any 
case which we decline to approve. 

It must not be understood, however, that the progress of 
philosophy is conditioned upon the consistent and complete 
employment of this double method of procedure by any one 
individual or any one age. Every individual thinker, as indeed 
every particular age, may be more successful in either analysis 
or synthesis, at the relative and temporary expense of the 
other. Every individual or age may apply either branch of 
the one method more strictly and successfully than otherwise 
to some one or more of the great problems of reflective think- 
ing; for no individual and no age furnishes the complete and 
final philosophy. 

Every individual and every age contributes something to 
the great whole, which is the self-development of reason in its 
understanding of the problem of the universe, and the adjust- 
ment and interpretation of its own life as part of that problem. 
But the method of philosophy remains essentially the same 
with every individual and every age. That method it is 
which we have endeavored to describe. 



CHAPTER VI. 

DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

' I ^HBEE attitudes of mind toward philosophical truth have 
■*• always characterized the development in reflection of the 
individual thinker and of the race. These three are dogmatism, 
scepticism, and criticism ; and the order of their actual predomi- 
nance may be said to correspond to that in which their names 
are here placed. The dogmatic, sceptical, or critical mental 
attitude is not peculiar to any particular school or method of 
philosophy. Either one of these attitudes is perhaps equally 
compatible with each of the great philosophical schools or 
systems ; no one of them can be held to be incompatible with 
the use of the correct method of philosophizing. On the con- 
trary, the most fruitful and effective development of the tenets 
of every school can be gained only through the employment of 
reason upon these tenets with each one of these mental atti- 
tudes. And if the method of analytical philosophy seems to 
be most closely allied to scepticism and to criticism, and the 
method of synthetical philosophy to dogmatism, this only shows 
that the true method, which holds both analysis and synthesis 
in a living and progressive union, requires for its working all 
three. 

Agnosticism and eclecticism, although not infrequently classed 
with dogmatism, scepticism, and criticism, have absolutely no 
claim to recognition as distinct mental temperaments or atti- 
tudes toward philosophical truth. Indeed, the term "agnosti- 
cism " does not properly serve to define a philosophical system, 
a philosophical method, or even — as has just been said — a dis- 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 141 

tinct attitude of mind toward truth. This apparently paradox- 
ical proposition might be amply justified in its application to 
the tenets of the most prominent leader, in England and this 
country at least, of philosophical agnosticism. We refer, of 
course, to Mr. Herbert Spencer. As respects his conclusions, 
this thinker is to be classed among the realists in philosophy ; 
his system is to be defined, not as agnosticism, but — to use his 
own term — as "Transfigured Eealism." It is true that, in 
his earlier and cruder writings, under the influence of a lauda- 
ble ambition once for all time to reconcile the ancient strife 
between science and religion, he stated his discovery of the 
supreme Principle in terms of agnostic dogmatism. The " deep- 
est, widest, and most certain of all facts," said he, is this, — 
" that the Power which the Universe manifests to us is utterly 
inscrutable." 1 But a careful examination of the context of 
this statement shows us that this Power cannot, in the deeper 
judgment of Mr. Spencer, be called " utterly inscrutable ; " for 
he himself speaks of it as a Unit-Being, having Permanency, 
and manifesting itself in the world of phenomena ; it is Ul- 
timate Existence, Ultimate Cause ; it has an " established 
order," is responsible for " actions " and even for ethical " in- 
fluence " upon personal agencies ; and it " forms the basis of 
intelligence." No wonder, then, that in his more mature pro- 
nouncements, as " Synthetic Philosophy," he changes the more 
agnostic to the more positive form. Thus what was originally 
a provisional assumption becomes a verified truth. 2 Accord- 
ingly, we are now told : " Behind all manifestations, inner and 
outer, there is a Power manifested." " The one thing perma- 
nent is the Unknowable Eeality hidden under all these changing 
forms." 

What is true of Spencerian agnosticism so-called is neces- 
sarily true of all philosophical agnosticism. So far as it tran- 
scends that pause before the positing of affirmative or negative 

1 First Principles, New York, 1872, p. 46. 

2 Principles of Psychology, New York, 1876, ii. 503. 



142 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

statements touching the knowledge and being of the truly Ex- 
istent, which the sceptical and critical attitudes demand, it can 
assume, of necessity, only some form of dogmatism. Philosophi- 
cal scepticism is the genuine and necessary doubt with which 
the freedom of inquiring reason envisages all the positive con- 
tent of scientific and philosophical truth. Philosophical crit- 
icism is the activity of reason, disciplined and informed, in the 
use of the most searching analysis of its own processes and of 
their products. But both scepticism and criticism necessarily 
issue in the discrimination of those ultimate and verifiable 
principles — whatever and how many so ever they may be — 
which demand and support the positive and synthetic construc- 
tion of philosophy. There is therefore no such thing possible 
as an " agnostic " philosophy as distinguished from the exercise 
of those rights of scepticism and criticism which belong to all 
philosophy. 

"What is true of the conclusions of Spencerian agnosticism is 
true of its method also. Agnosticism has no special method 
superior or unknown to all the systems of more positive kind. 
Indeed, an examination of the customary method of its devo- 
tees — largely if not especially, of Mr. Spencer himself — dis- 
closes a certain defectiveness in respect of that very scientific 
and critical quality of which it is accustomed to boast. All 
attempts hitherto made at a completely sceptical or agnostic 
philosophy sadly lack consistency and method. From the very 
nature of the case this must be so. For uncritical scepticism 
issuing in agnosticism, as Kant long ago pointed out, is essen- 
tially dogmatic. A completely agnostic issue to a sceptical and 
critical survey of the problem of knowledge is self-destructive. 
But arbitrarily to limit reason in its power to discern not only 
the existence {that there is a " Power manifested," a " Eeality 
hidden under all the changing forms "), but also the nature 
{what is the Power, and therefore that it is not "utterly in- 
scrutable") of the ultimate principle, is to throw one's self 
again into the arms of dogmatism. However, if the limita- 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 143 

tion be made as the result of the most penetrating criticism, 
it involves in the making a large positive content of philosophy. 
It is therefore reflective analysis, and constructive synthesis of 
the principles selected through analysis, which constitute the 
method of even so-called agnostic philosophy. In the use of 
this method every form of dogmatism must pass by the paths 
of scepticism and criticism to the possession of its right to its 
conclusions, whether they be affirmations or denials. There is 
no royal road to professional and systematic philosophical 
nescience. 

It is then perfectly legitimate for the disciples of Spencerian 
or other forms of agnosticism to adopt a consistent system of 
affirmative and negative propositions touching man's power to 
know the Ultimate Reality and touching the Being and Nature 
of that Reality. But this system they must arrive at as the 
result of a well-disciplined and thorough critical thinking. Nor 
do their negations of knowledge, its possibility and its actual- 
ity, stand on peculiarly sacred ground. When it is shown that 
they themselves affirm or deny more than they can maintain 
successfully in view of ultimate principles of all knowing and 
being, — albeit their excess of knowledge concerns chiefly the 
exact limits beyond which reason cannot pass, — they must be 
ready cheerfully to enter anew upon the pursuit of philosophy 
by its only true method. If they praise Mr. Spencer because 
he pronounces " utterly inscrutable " that Reality whose exis- 
tence, nevertheless, he maintains to be the most indubitable of 
all truths, about whose attributes he has himself pronounced so 
freely, and the law of whose life and manifestation he describes 
in terms of evolution, — they cannot well blame some other 
thinker (for example, Hegel) simply because he attempts to 
show that this Reality is Reason itself, and the law of its being 
the dialectical movement (an evolution) from An-sieh-sein 
through Aoiders-sein to Fiir-sich-sein. 

The remarks just made apply, in part, to the plan of Mr. 
Lewes for getting rid of what he is pleased to call the " me- 



144 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CEITICISM. 

tempirical " elements and problems of philosophy. 1 His modi- 
fied agnosticism or positivism is another of the many attempts, 
without a thorough and consistent critical analysis, to maintain 
a system of speculative statements in which somewhat dogmatic 
negations have too prominent a place. " Whenever," says this 
writer, 2 " a question is couched in terms that ignore experience, 
reject known truths, and invoke inaccessible data, — i. e., data 
inaccessible through our present means, or through any con- 
ceivable extension of those means, — - it is metempirical, and 
philosophy can have nothing to do with it." Now it is safe to 
say, with only a fairly strict interpretation of Mr. Lewes's lan- 
guage, that no such question could ever be raised, or couched in 
any terms whatever, by the human mind. Do ghosts exist ? Is 
there a well-founded art of palmistry ? Are the claims of tele- 
pathy true ? Is electricity, like light, a mode of motion, or is 
it a peculiar entity, the bearer of energy but devoid of mass ? 
These are questions in which the particular sciences of physics, 
physiology, and psychology are interested. We may be ignorant 
of their answer, but we cannot exclude them from consideration 
by the human mind simply by calling them " metempirical." 
And of course Mr. Lewes's philosophical agnosticism does not 
extend to questions couched in such terms as these. 

Questions relating to " things per se" their nature and their 
properties, are, however, metempirical ; and by things per se, 
their nature and their properties, Mr. Lewes seems to wish to 
cover all that we regard as having reality, in distinction from 
the merely phenomenal But the problem of how, and why, 
and with what warrant, men come to imagine (to use Mr. 
Lewes's term) " Things as they are, and underlying the Things 
which appear, — a world behind phenomena, incapable of being 
sensibly grasped, but supposed to have a more perfect reality 
than the phenomenal world," — belongs within the distinctive 

1 For a detailed criticism of Mr. Lewes, see Shadvrorth Hodgson's Philosophy 
of Reflection, two vols., London, 1878. 

2 Problems of Life and Mind, vol. * p. 30. 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 145 

domain of philosophy. Just so far as he refuses to consider 
this problem he declines the pursuit of philosophy, as a theory 
of knowledge by the legitimate method of reflective analysis 
and speculative synthesis, and remains in the negative and inert 
condition of dogmatic agnosticism. 

But, like every other professional positivist, Mr. Lewes is not 
lacking in confidence in the ability of his own reason to accom- 
plish — off-hand, as it were — certain very difficult feats in 
metaphysical philosophy. The method of his procedure he 
describes as follows : " To disengage the metempirical elements, 
and proceed to treat the empirical elements with the view of 
deducing from them the unknown elements, if that be practi- 
cable; or if the deduction be impracticable, of registering the 
unknown elements as transcendental." But what is implied in 
the very attempt which is here proposed ? Is it not implied 
that metempirical elements exist in human thinking, and that 
the very nature of these elements is such as further to impli- 
cate the existence of a world of reality such as Mr. Lewes calls 
transcendental ? And is it not also implied that this individual 
thinker is competent, not only to disengage these metempirical 
elements and make deductions from the known to the unknown, 
but also to register in the behalf of the race, the material which 
is " transcendental " ? Now what, we might further inquire in 
the interest of reason's progressive self-knowledge, is to be done 
with this collection of "transcendental" refuse material? Is it 
to be at once and forever consumed in the fire of agnostic meta- 
physics ? Or is it to be doomed to perpetual imprisonment in 
a cell over which the inscription is written — not to " the great 
Unknown," but to " the eternally Unknowable " ? Or is it to 
be kept for future analysis, in the hope of further reducing its 
quantity ? 

Scepticism and criticism are indispensable to the progress of 
philosophical thinking. They are attitudes of reason before its 
eternal problems, as it advances, by the method of reflective 
analysis, from an incomplete synthesis to one relatively more 

10 



146 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

perfect and comprehensive. But as distinguished from these 
mental attitudes and the method of advance in the knowledge 
of its problems which philosophy employs, agnosticism and posi- 
tivism have no philosophical standing. They serve only to recall 
the saying of Lessing : " For the vast majority the goal of their 
reflection is the spot where they grow tired of reflection." 

That so-called eclecticism is neither a philosophy nor a method 
of philosophy follows — as we have already seen — from the 
nature of philosophy and its method. Nor is eclecticism to be 
classed with the three forms of mental attitude toward philoso- 
phical truth which we have called the dogmatic, the sceptical, 
and the critical. So far as it differs from that spirit of critical 
freedom with which the student of philosophy conducts his 
survey of history, it is an inept way of expressing one of the 
two fundamental postulates which all philosophical discipline 
implies. This postulate is that of " the existence in the world 
at large of a ' truth ' which affords a sure object for cognition." 
The world in which eclecticism expects to find this truth is the 
world of speculative thinking. But to convert this indefinite 
postulate of a " soul of truth " to be discovered in the different 
related systems of philosophical thinking into the definite 
knowledge of what that truth is, requires the use of philo- 
sophical method. And if the material for treatment is gained 
from historical study rather than from a study of the present 
conclusions of the particular sciences, it no less demands that 
we should regard it sceptically and critically before we accept 
it as material for a positive synthesis. 

Dogmatism, scepticism, criticism ; and then a new positive 
construction of those results that have stood the test of critical 
analysis, which in its turn comes to be regarded by scepticism as 
unverifiably dogmatic, — it is through these changes of mental 
attitude that philosophical inquiry is compelled to pass. This 
is the order of the different phases necessary to the growth of 
the organism of rational knowledge. The proposition might be 
illustrated by the experience of every individual thinker and by 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 147 

that of the race. This order applies to the consideration of 
every particular problem of philosophy ; it applies also to the 
development of systems and schools. But in every individual 
and in the race, whether the formation of views touching some 
particular problem or the development of an entire system is 
concerned, these different phases are not distinctly separated. 
Every thinker is likely to be positively confident, or dogmatic, 
respecting his own answer to certain problems of philosophy ; 
sceptical and agnostic with regard to any answer to other 
problems ; and more or less thoroughly critical toward certain 
answers to still other problems. Similar, in this regard, to the 
mental attitude of each individual thinker is that of the multi- 
tude in any given age. 

At present, for example, the Zeitgeist is inclined to be confid- 
ingly dogmatic toward metaphysical postulates put forth in the 
name of physical science, but intensely sceptical toward those 
upon which repose the traditional views on subjects of morals 
and religion. An hypothesis like the conservation or correla- 
tion of energy, or like Darwinian evolution, gains a compara- 
tively easy credence from otherwise sceptical minds. It may 
even put forth the virtual claim adequately to represent the 
ultimate principles of the life of all that is really Existent. 
But the dogma of Theism, that this really Existent is One self- 
conscious and rational Person, can with difficulty obtain a fair 
hearing even when it appears in the shape of a modest petitioner 
for the place of an hypothesis. 

Philosophy began among the Greeks in the form of a dogma- 
tic solution offered to the problem of cosmology. The three 
most ancient schools posited, without any adequate sceptical and 
critical examination, certain assumed substantial causes of the 
Being of Things. Heracleitus and his successors in the same 
line of inquiry (Empedocles, Leucippus, and Anaxagoras) dealt 
in similar dogmatic fashion with the problem of Change and 
Motion. The dogmatism of all this period touching the problems 
of morals and religion was expressed in unquestioned custom, 



148 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

ceremony, law, and popular belief, rather than in definite at- 
tempts at a system of philosophical tenets. It was chiefly with 
reference to this dogmatism that the scepticism of the Sophists 
found its field of action. They have fitly been called by 
Zeller "the exponents and agents in the Greek illumination 
{Aufldarwng) of the fifth century B. c. ; " like all such would- 
be philosophers, their scepticism was dogmatic and uncritical. 
They readily leaped to the conclusion : " Objectively true science 
is impossible, and our knowledge cannot pass beyond subjective 
phenomena." The Sophists thus exhibit the typical issue of 
uncritical dogmatism in dogmatic agnosticism. 

The germ and spirit of criticism belong to the maieutic of Soc- 
rates. This new form of scientific life was designed to separate 
between the rational and the irrational in that experience over 
all of which an uncritical scepticism had thrown the shadow of 
doubt. Toward the speculations of the philosophy of nature, as 
conducted in his time, Socrates remained a complete sceptic ; 
but in respect of ethical matters he maintained and defended 
a theory of cognition which holds that real truth is attainable 
by the method of dialectic. By this method our notions may 
be brought to a strict harmony with what is in itself true and 
just. While the other disciples of Socrates, and the schools 
which they founded, showed little or no power to use his 
method of reflective analysis, and upon it to erect a relatively 
consistent system of synthetic philosophy, it was not so with 
Plato. This great thinker developed the maieutic of Socrates 
into something resembling a scientific methodology. He ex- 
tended the results of analysis so as to include many subjects 
hitherto treated by the philosophy of morals only very imper- 
fectly ; and upon these results he founded, as a vast expansion 
of the Socratic doctrine of concepts, "a grand system of an 
idealistic nature, the central point of which lies on the one side 
in the intuition of ideas, on the other in inquiries about the 
nature and duties of man." He thus gave to the world the first 
body of positive propositions arrived at by the method of philo- 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 149 

sophical reflection, — this reflection being conducted through 
the stages of scepticism and criticism to a stage of reconstructed 
dogmatism. Platonism has therefore a permanent and absolute 
value in the evolution of speculative thinking. 

Among the immediate disciples of Plato, only Aristotle is of 
any significance for the development of philosophy or for the 
study of the method of its advance. But judged by the stan- 
dard of his age, Aristotle comprehended in his system more of 
the complete content of philosophical truth, as he made a more 
thorough and consistent use of the complete method for ascer- 
taining and verifying such truth, than any other thinker of 
antiquity, and perhaps of all time. His attitude toward Plato- 
nism was sceptical and critical upon many points of minor im- 
portance, and especially upon the central point of the doctrine 
of ideas. But notwithstanding this, he gave both to the conclu- 
sions and to the method of the Platonic philosophy an incalcu- 
lably great and positive expansion and reconstruction. More 
especially, Aristotle founded several of the particular sciences 
on which corresponding departments of philosophy are depen- 
dent ; and he labored with amazing skill and success to create a 
philosophical terminology and to place his synthetic philosophy 
upon a basis of comprehensive empirical knowledge. Aristo- 
telianism is therefore the second great system which has a 
permanent and absolute value in the evolution of speculative 
thought. 

The post- Aristotelian schools were founded in the attempt, 
without any consistent and thorough process of criticism, to 
formulate certain problems of philosophy — pertaining, for the 
most part, to the life of sensitivity and conduct — so as to 
satisfy in a practical way the immediate needs of the individual. 
They therefore involve a crude mingling of the sceptical and the 
dogmatic positions with a disuse of the true method of philoso- 
phy. These " schools " are therefore, — including the so-called 
" sceptical," — in the main, all dogmatic. The Peripatetics, who 
were the immediate successors of Aristotle, busied themselves 



150 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

with certain minor points in his system ; they did not attempt 
by a change of method, or by a more thorough use of the 
established dialectic and the investigation of nature, to solve 
any of the greater philosophical problems. The Stoics and 
Epicureans, in respect of the philosophy of nature and the 
theory of Being and Knowledge, retrograded from the points 
reached by Plato and Aristotle. In respect of ethics, upon 
which they concentrated their attention, their positions, al- 
though of no great scientific value, were distinctly critical ; and 
the positive conclusions they reached have a certain amount of 
permanent value in the development of philosophy. They mark 
the outcome of the Greek mind in its efforts to deal, by use of 
philosophical method, with the phenomena and the ideals of 
ethical life. So, too, does the later Greek scepticism show that 
placid agnosticism which " accepts the impossibility of knowl- 
edge as a natural destiny," — a thing difficult, if not impos- 
sible, for minds that, like ours, have inherited the mental 
peculiarities of centuries of Christian belief and opinion. 

Neo-Platonism, as well as its precursors and comrades in 
philosophy, shows the results of new attempts at constructing 
a system of thinking in one chief department of philosophy. 
These attempts are all critical of the ancient dogmatic conclu- 
sions on which they are founded, but only in a partial way. 
They introduce us, however, to phases of the philosophy of re- 
ligion with the recurrence of which, under changes of garb and 
presentation, the history of philosophy is familiar. They exhibit 
that strong tendency to some form of Monism which belongs of 
necessity to all philosophical inquiry when it is pushed to the 
consideration of those supreme problems in which the reason of 
man as a religious being is interested. From all the earlier 
forms of Monism a sceptical reaction, to be followed by efforts 
at a new critical reconstruction, arose as the result of the de- 
mands of a scientific psychology, especially in the department 
of ethics. 

The relation of dogmatism, scepticism, and criticism as the 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 151 

three perpetually recurring attitudes of mind toward philo- 
sophical truth, might be further illustrated by an appeal to 
the entire mediaeval period. The illustrations would be com- 
paratively scanty, however, on account of the comparatively 
stationary character of philosophy during that period. The 
theology of the period was, nevertheless, — in spite of any claims 
to a special source in revelation either through the inspired 
writings or the inspired judgment of the Christian Church, — 
a form of the philosophy of religion. It was, that is to say, the 
result of rational activity in reflective analysis and speculative 
synthesis, excited by the great facts of the Christian faith and 
life. Among the earlier Church Fathers (notably Origen and 
Augustine) there was exhibited no little power of free thought 
in the use of genuine philosophical method. Some of the con- 
clusions of these thinkers are parts of the permanent positive 
results of the philosophy of religion. Without these we can- 
not establish an organic evolution of speculative thought from 
the Greeks down to modern times. 

And even in the so-called " dark " ages, when the principle 
of authority was recognized as unquestioned, and is often sup- 
posed to have reigned supreme, there was considerable room 
still left for sceptical and critical attitudes from which to 
regard the prevalent dogmatism. Scepticism and criticism 
were of course theoretically possible only in the case of dogmas 
upon which the Church had not pronounced. But in fact 
there were not wanting serious attempts to treat matters scep- 
tically and critically which fell under the content of established 
dogmas. Doubt might at least be expressed as to the way of 
understanding what the Church Fathers or the ecclesiastical 
councils had held ; criticism also might be applied to different 
prevalent ways of expressing that about the substantial truth 
of which there was general agreement. The monk Gaunilo, for 
example, might in a measure anticipate the critical freedom of 
Kant, in his examination of the Anselmic ontological argument. 
Nor was the great debate between the positions of Platonism 



152 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

and those of Aristotelianisrn ever quite settled by Churchly 
dogmatism. The strife of Bealism and Nominalism, although 
the agnostic rationalism of the latter seemed to threaten the 
reality of the Trinity itself, resulted in the establishment of a 
modified positive view containing elements from both, rather 
than in the complete suppression within the Church of the 
sceptical and critical movement. 

With Descartes the necessity of the sceptical attitude toward 
all conclusions of philosophical dogmatism, and the intelligent 
use of reflective analysis as an instrument for the discovery of 
philosophical truth, become emphasized. But this thinker, who 
in this regard gave its characteristics to the modern era, was 
also the founder in direct line of certain great dogmatic sys- 
tems which were broken into fragments by the sceptical and 
critical method of Kant. Spinozism is intensely and consis- 
tently dogmatic from beginning to close. Its value in the evo- 
lution of thought consists in three things ; by its failure it 
demonstrates the inapplicability of the strictly deductive and 
mathematical method to the problems of philosophy. At the 
same time it shows by use of this deductive method how much 
can be done to explain the world, as known by the particular 
sciences, with reference to the conception of a bare Unity of 
Substance ; and it affords a system of dogmatic propositions 
from which sceptical and critical analysis may take its start in 
estimating every new system of abstract modal and monistic 
Pantheism. 

In Leibnitz we find the same fertile and skilful use of criti- 
cism upon the existing content of philosophy, combined with the 
introduction from the particular sciences of new material, and 
the same free spring from this basis upward to a higher level of 
synthesis, which characterized the work of Aristotle. But the 
speculative results of this thinker soon united with other ele- 
ments to form the system of reigning dogmatism which awaited 
the criticism of Kant. 

The half-use of the sceptical and critical attitude, and the 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 153 

corresponding development of philosophical method, which 
were characteristic of Locke's philosophy, bore abundant fruit 
in two different directions. In the one direction this movement 
resulted in that mixture of dogmatic scepticism and equally 
dogmatic sensationalism which established itself in England, 
and especially in France. In another direction it developed, 
through the critical but extreme idealism of Berkeley, into the 
relatively consistent and critical scepticism of Hume. [We 
cannot agree wholly with Kant in placing this thinker among 
the ranks of dogmatic scepticism.] It was the scepticism of 
Hume which made possible the modern attempts at a critical 
reconstruction of the theory of knowledge. 

The modern era of deliberate, intelligent employment of 
reflective analysis, in the maintenance of the candid and free 
critical attitude, begins with the " Critique of Pure Keason." Yet 
its author, as we have already remarked, always remained in 
the dogmatic attitude toward several of the most important of 
those problems whose consideration, and even whose statement, 
is involved in the problem he undertook to solve. This made 
necessary a subsequent application of the Kantian criticism to 
Kant's own dogmatic views respecting the nature of the mind 
and its faculties, and to his dogmatic presuppositions respecting 
the a priori synthetic character of the body of truth taught by 
mathematics and physics. The work of critical analysis and 
reconstruction from the Kantian point of view is by no means 
as yet completed. Meanwhile, a vast accumulation of truths 
and conjectures, due to the modern advance of the particular 
sciences, — especially of physics, biology, and psychology, — is 
making a demand for recognition and treatment at the hands of 
philosophy. Toward this accumulation the attitude of philoso- 
phy is for the most part receptive and positive ; but it must 
also be in part critical, if not sceptical. 

Since Kant the philosophical spirit has been strongly imbued 
with the critical principle. No attempt at the construction of 
a new synthetic philosophy can now gain attention without 



154 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

appearing, at least, to stand toward all previous schools and 
thinkers in the position of a free sceptic and critic. And yet 
it is since Kant that the most stupendous systems of philo- 
sophical dogma have arisen — though chiefly upon German 
soil — which the world has ever known. Fichte, Schelling, 
Hegel, and all the earlier luminaries shining largely by light 
borrowed from them and from Kant, and now later Schopen- 
hauer, Von Hartmann, and Herbert Spencer have built up 
great synthetic structures with extreme scepticism toward the 
results of previous thinking, and with equally extreme confi- 
dence in their own power to attain something approaching a 
final philosophy. Each thinker has perhaps contributed some- 
thing permanent toward that completer system of associated 
principles of all Being and Knowledge which constitutes phi- 
losophy. But each system seems destined in turn to have 
many of its positive conclusions regarded as unwarrantably 
dogmatic, and subjected to a new process of sceptical analysis 
and critical reconstruction. 

The rapid rise and fall of great systems of synthetic philoso- 
phy has been characteristic of the century since Kant. It is 
one proof of the extraordinary mental activity of the age, of the 
wonderful new growths of the particular sciences regarded as 
critics and purveyors of philosophy, and of the unabated in- 
fluence of the spirit of the Kantian criticism. It is not strange 
that the result has been to create a widespread distrust in the 
value of all attempts at philosophical system. The fact is also 
noteworthy that many of the most acute and rdent students 
of the subject have devoted themselves to the critical and 
historical consideration of particular problems, and have aban- 
doned all attempts at proposing new solutions for those prob- 
lems. The last half of the century since Kant has seen a 
multitude of workers who emphatically deny that they seek 
a system of their own, or will follow the system of any other ; 
and who even express despair of the possibility of framing 
again a philosophical whole that shall command an intelligent 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 155 

and enthusiastic, if only a temporary, adherence. But unless 
the method and attitude which render progressive the self- 
knowledge of reason have met with some secret constitutional 
change, an era of new great syntheses in philosophy awaits us 
in the future. 

The naturalness of those changes of mental attitude which 
lead from dogmatism, through scepticism and critical inquiry, 
back to a positive reconstruction, is seen in the consideration 
of each particular problem of philosophy. The tenets of the 
schools, with which each of these problems is answered, illus- 
trate the truth still further. 

The first important problem which scientific psychology — 
just at the point where it touches metaphysics — hands over 
to philosophy for a more nearly ultimate solution, is the problem 
of Perception by the senses. Naive, unreflecting consciousness 
is frankly dogmatic as respects the solution of this problem. 
To it, indeed, a problem can scarcely be said to exist ; for it has 
never been sceptical toward the native presupposition which 
takes all " Things " really to be as they seem. But experience 
quickly forces a measure of the sceptical attitude. That the 
senses cannot always be trusted, is soon learned ; and that the 
light and color, smell, taste, sound, and feeling (so far at least 
as heat and cold are concerned) of things are not objectively as 
they are to us, the modern school-boy knows enough of physics 
to assert. At this stage of analysis certain systems of philoso- 
phy have attempted to call a halt to the progress of scepticism 
and criticism. But the conclusions of these systems cannot 
bear for a moment the more searching inquiry into the nature 
of the object immediately known by the senses, or into the 
nature of the process of cognition. 

Another stand against scepticism and critical inquiry is 
made when the whole science of modern physics is summoned 
positively to solve the problem concerning the nature of that 
which is known in sense-perception as a really existent " Thing." 
Science is cited in proof of philosophical dogmatism. Then, 



156 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

indeed, a wonderful new world of Eeality is disclosed to us as 
the result (though only very indirectly) of cognition by the 
senses. The real world which physics knows and propounds 
as a final barrier to philosophical scepticism, is a world of 
atoms, — colorless, silent, without smell or taste, discrete and 
without continuity of extension, restlessly mobile, inherently 
possessors of occult energies, and blindly obedient to countless 
numbers of laws. 

But the philosophical inquirer declines to stay the march of 
scepticism and criticism at this point. For the authority of 
scientific dogmatism is no more terrifying to him than the 
authority of cloddy " common-sense." What sort of a Eeality 
have we here ? he asks. Is this so-called " real " world any 
other than a system of well-ordered conceptions, introduced in 
the name of physical science, to account for the world which 
must always remain more real to every man, because it is the 
world he " immediately " knows ? And what is the essence of 
a world of conceptions if it be not a mental world ? Moreover, 
what one tie, or ties many, can be known to bind into a Unity 
in Eeality this restless multitude of discrete atomic beings ? 
For forces and laws are but names derived from the modes of 
being and action of what really is. 

When, then, scepticism dissolves the dogmatic syntheses of a 
scientific physical realism, and hands the problem over again to 
philosophy for further critical inquiry, the issue of this final 
attempt at analysis and reconstruction may be manifold. 
Agnosticism denies that the Being which " Things " have can 
ever be known ; perhaps, also, that we can ever know whether 
things have any real being or not. Scepticism becomes dog- 
matic, and positively affirms that Things have no reality. 
Idealism, which has approached and followed the same prob- 
lem along somewhat different lines, agrees with scepticism in 
this negation of reality to the object of sense-perception. Posi- 
tively, it adopts the principle of esse est percipi ; and, in some 
form of reconstructed dogmatism, identifies the reality of things 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 157 

with the reality of the subject acting to construct its objects, 
according to its own mental laws. Bealism, again, " transfig- 
ured " in some worthy way by the process of criticism, specula- 
tively discusses the nature of this extra-mental existence, in 
whose being all things have such reality as they possess. And, 
finally, critical philosophy, in its supreme effort, discerns the 
possibility of reconciling the valid claims of both idealism and 
realism by a synthesis which shall establish such a Unity of 
Subject and Object in Ultimate Eeality as shall best explain all 
the groups of phenomena to which the different conclusions 
appeal. 

The problem of Self-consciousness, like the problem of sense- 
perception, illustrates the naturalness of reason's progress by 
the three attitudes of dogmatism, scepticism, and criticism. 
For naive unreflecting consciousness this problem also has no 
existence. For it the conviction that I really am, and that I 
know what I really am, seems neither to need explanation nor 
to admit of debate. This easy-going common-sense realism is 
attacked and overthrown by philosophical doubt. That I think 
(cogito), may not indeed admit of settled and serious doubt ; 
and that I am, in some sort, when I think {Cogito, ergo sum), 
may be considered a proposition equally beyond all the suc- 
cessful assaults of scepticism. But am I when I do not think, 
when I swoon or deeply sleep ? And do we by the Cartesian 
phrase — seeming, as it does to all reflecting minds, to skim 
the surface of that depth of being which we long to explore 
— tell all, or even the most and best, of what I really am ? 
Now that the phenomena of trance, hypnotism, insanity, and 
other abnormal conditions of conscious or unconscious (?) idea- 
tion and volition are being brought into the clear light of 
science, will the old answers satisfy the demands of proof for 
the traditional tenets of rational psychology ? What shall we 
say of the apparent existence of layer beneath layer of con- 
sciousness in the sub-conscious being of that which, in reflec- 
tive self-consciousness, I call " myself " ? What shall we say 



158 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

of the partial or total loss of the sense of personal identity ; of 
that complete becoming other than one's self which takes place 
in hypnotic and insane conditions ; of double consciousness, 
recurring intermittently or periodically ? What are we to 
think of those wonderful phenomena of genius — akin indeed 
to madness and to inspiration, from certain points of view — 
that seem to give token of the presence, in the one whom 
we call our Ego, of another One, a mysterious, all-compre- 
hending Life ? 

When the sceptical and critical examination of the older 
dogmatic positions respecting the answer to the problem of 
self-consciousness has been reinforced by considerations like 
the foregoing, it is not strange that difficulty is found in re- 
constructing the synthetic philosophy of mind. As respects 
this problem, too, agnosticism may dogmatically proclaim the 
impossibility of any knowledge of that reality which souls have ; 
scepticism and materialism may deny that souls, in sooth ! can 
have any reality ; idealism may affirm that their only reality 
is the activity of self-conscious ideation itself; and realism 
may speculate as to what extra-mental being can be affirmed 
of that sort of existences whose very nature appears to itself 
to be purely mental. But genuine philosophy, with a wise 
moderation of scepticism and a patient use of critical analysis, 
will review and modify its syntheses in this department as the 
progress of psychology and psycho-physics affords the required 
means. 

The more abstract consideration of both the two problems 
already mentioned constitutes the sphere of metaphysics. This 
branch of philosophical discipline considers the nature of that 
Being which we attribute to all — both Things and Minds — 
that we call " real." In its original dogmatic form it consists 
of those crude and unreflecting presuppositions which, for the 
ordinary man, bind his experience into the unity of reality 
which it seems to its possessor to have. To natural, unreflec- 
ting consciousness things are as they appear to minds; and 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 159 

minds are as each mind appears to itself to be. A host of 
relations also exists, above, around, and between minds and 
things, and these relations compel each being to govern its 
own behavior in view of the behavior of other beings. It 
is not necessary to trace the steps by which sceptical doubt 
and critical inquiry enforce the reconstruction of conceptions 
like these. The changing attitudes of mind toward this more 
complex problem of general metaphysics, and toward the dif- 
ferent principal answers proposed for this problem, are essen- 
tially the same as those already described. 

The earliest dogmatism of the mind toward the problem of 
Cognition in general is even more unquestioning and pronounced 
than that toward the problem of Being. To doubt whether 
I truthfully represent some particular form of reality, 
whether of matter or of mind, is far easier than to doubt 
whether I can know reality at all. It is indeed of the very 
nature of reason and of philosophical inquiry that it should 
be so. For the confidence of reason in itself, which is the 
same thing as the confidence that knowable truth exists for 
it, is a primary postulate of all reflective thinking. In the 
criticism of all other presuppositions this one remains as a 
kind of fixed point of standing ; from which, if only it can 
be maintained, reason expects, with a never-tiring cheerful- 
ness, to lift upward the whole world of thought. But even 
this postulate may be made the object of sceptical attack ; 
it must, in the interests of synthetic philosophy itself, be 
made the subject of critical inquiry. And even if it were 
not to be doubted at all that I may know the really Exis- 
tent, the various dogmatic statements as to how I may know 
this Existent, and hoiv much of it I may know, require to be 
subjected to a sceptical and critical inquiry. The theory of 
cognition thus passes in order, and again and yet again, by 
the path of dogmatism, scepticism, and criticism, to the form 
of a higher and newly re-constructed synthesis. 

The application of considerations like the foregoing to the 



160 DOG-MATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

Ideals of Eeason need not detain us long. The fact of appli- 
cation is readily made apparent. To the unreflecting ethical 
or aasthetical feeling the current dogmatism of assertion as to 
what is morally good or truly beautiful passes unquestioned. 
This dogmatism, in the solution of these great problems, is 
practical rather than speculative. To it the existing maxims, 
customs, laws, precepts, and modes of conduct present and 
sufficiently define what is morally right and good. The sur- 
rounding forms of nature, or — more probably — the traditional 
rules and products of personal adornment and other art, present 
and define the aesthetically good, — " the beautiful," so called. 
But doubt disturbs the repose of this attitude of unquestioning 
acceptance. Sceptical doubt must be operative in this way if 
a science, and then a philosophy, of the good and the beauti- 
ful, are to arise. But scepticism never produces of itself any 
improvements in science, any new and better solutions of 
philosophical problems. 

The positive sciences of ethics and aesthetics represent a next 
higher stage of achievement in synthesis. They show what men 
in general, in various ages and by progressive approaches, have 
agreed upon as the rules, maxims, or laws of the beautiful and 
the morally good. But philosophy seeks the rational and the 
universal. It aims so to know the essence of these ideals of its 
own as to connect them with each other (since they are both its 
own ideals), and with that Unity of Ultimate Reality which 
reason, of necessity, postulates. It then proceeds by a sceptical 
and critical examination of the principles alleged by a scientific 
ethics and aesthetics, which it regards as too dogmatic for the 
supreme uses of philosophy, with its attempts at a higher syn- 
thesis. These attempts too, like all those made by philosophy 
to solve its problems, constitute the progressive self-knowledge 
of reason and its progressively higher knowledge of the world. 
Every new effort rises upon the preceding by leaping from the 
truth left undissolved by the severer critical analysis to a grander 
and more comprehensive synthesis. 



DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 161 

In the Philosophy of Eeligion, the highest department of all 
philosophical discipline and the essentially synthetic branch of 
philosophical system, the same truth holds. How shall we 
solve the problem of that Supreme and Ultimate Unity in 
which the presuppositions and ideals of reason, and all the 
principles of the sciences, both of nature and of mind, may 
find their ground? To this problem all the other problems 
of philosophy point the way. In its complete solution would 
be found involved the solution of all the others. Therefore the 
stages by which they severally advance are effective in giving 
conditions to the advance of this supreme problem. If the 
problem of knowledge, for example, receive the answer of ag- 
nosticism or scepticism, then we must deny that, or doubt 
whether, man can know God. If the problems considered by 
the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of mind receive 
the solution proposed by materialism, then the ultimate Reality 
cannot be known as the personal Absolute " whom faith may 
call God." If the problem of the Ideals of Reason — the 
problem touching the ultimate nature and ground of the 
beautiful and the good — are to be answered after the manner 
of a certain kind of idealism, then the Absolute One cannot be 
the realization of the perfectly beautiful and the perfectly good. 

Scepticism and criticism are then as necessary for the best 
progress of the philosophy of religion as for the advance of any 
other department of philosophy. Only thus does reason rise 
on the assured results of its previous efforts at this supreme 
synthesis to a result more comprehensive and satisfying to 
its deepest needs. Only thus can all the accumulating knowl- 
edge and wisdom of the sciences of nature, life, and conduct 
contribute to the higher and broader knowledge of God. 

When, however, the attitude of scepticism toward philosophi- 
cal truth is praised for its own sake, or maintained as though 
in this way alone progress in philosophical knowledge were 
secured, its relation toward the true method and aim of phi- 
losophy is totally misconceived. When criticism is ceaselessly 

11 



162 DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND CRITICISM. 

carried on, without any assured and positive result becoming 
apparent, and when philosophizing issues in no philosophy 
beyond a system of negations and warnings, then the well- 
deserved reproach of all merely critical efforts is brought to 
mind. Then we hear men remarking how wearisome and 
profitless it is to be always whetting the knife, with no hope 
of carving anything; to be always tuning the instruments, 
with no prospect that the concert will ever begin. But all 
such procedures may remind us that the true method of 
philosophy is one of positive advance by reflective analysis 
and synthetic reconstruction of its material ; although the em- 
ployment of this method, in the case of finite minds, involves 
a passing through the stages of unsatisfactory dogmatism, 
sceptical doubt, renewed criticism, and higher attainment of 
truth. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 



THE proper method of dividing the entire domain of phi- 
losophy has occasioned almost as much discussion as 
the proper definition of this domain. Indeed the two subjects 
of discussion are almost unavoidably connected. For the con- 
ception which is held as to the nature of this rational pur- 
suit, and of the whole circle of problems which it involves, 
cannot fail to influence the distribution of the individual 
problems among its different so called departments or divisions. 
No objection can therefore be raised to the legitimate result 
of this very natural connection. But since the result itself 
is one of such unfortunate disagreement, the temptation is 
strong to deny the legitimacy, or even the possible advantage, 
of paying any attention to the connection. To this temptation 
Lotze has, in our judgment, yielded somewhat unwarrantably 
when he claims that each one of the different groups of philo- 
sophical problems " appears to be self-coherent and to require 
an investigation of a specific kind." " We attribute," he goes 
on to say, " little value to the reciprocal arrangement of these 
single groups under each other." 1 From this somewhat ex- 
treme distrust of all systematic attempts to derive the divisions 
of philosophy from our conception of its nature, the same 
author seems to depart, in a measure, when he agrees with 
Herbart in holding that there are as many independent sections 
(of Metaphysic) as there are different distinct problems to serve 

1 Grundziige der Logik und Encyclopadie oler Philosophie, ed. 1883, §§ 92 f., 
and Translation of edition of 1885, Boston, 1887, p. 152 f. 



164 THE DIVISIONS OP PHILOSOPHY. 

as separate causes of our philosophizing at all. For the number 
and nature of the ultimate philosophical problems which we 
recognize certainly depends upon the conception we hold of 
philosophy. 

The reconciliation of such an apparent conflict between the 
interests of logical consistency and the interests of convenience 
or of regard for real truth, is not difficult. The main cause of 
the prevalent divergence of views respecting the divisions of 
philosophy is, of course, a divergence of views respecting the 
definition of philosophy. But it has already been shown that 
all these conceptions, however different, agree in their principal 
factors. The different ways of stating these views arise chiefly 
from the wish of each thinker to identify philosophy as such 
with his own system of philosophical tenets. In other words, 
the statements too often tell not what philosophy is, but what 
in the judgment of their authors philosophy ought to be. It is 
to be expected, then, that those divisions of philosophy which 
are derived from the different conceptions of what philosophy 
ought to be, will themselves differ. This general fact may now 
be illustrated by a number of historical examples. 

It is not necessary to repeat what has already been said 
(see page 15 f.) to show that Kant's division of philosophy was 
determined by his peculiar views touching the nature and the 
results of philosophizing. These views do not admit of more 
than two legitimate and really serious departments of philos- 
ophy. These are theoretical and practical, — the former being 
absorbed in Notifies, or the theory of knowledge, and the latter 
being the doctrine of the categorical imperative as the a 'priori 
ground of conduct. In the case of Fichte such a thing as a 
consistent attempt to divide philosophy was not possible. In 
his view the only philosophy is Wissenschaftslehre, science of 
science itself. With Hegel the two fundamental principles — 
namely, the principle of the identity of Eeason and Being, and 
the principle of the dialectic — lead, of necessity, to the well- 
known threefold division of philosophy. " The division of the 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 165 

Hegelian system is, in consequence of the course which thought 
pursues in it (and we might add, in consequence of its assumption 
that this course of thought is the course of the self-unfolding 
of Beality), threefold." Logic, or the philosophy of Being-in- 
itself, the Philosophy of Nature, and the Philosophy of Spirit, 
are its necessary three main divisions. By application of the 
same principles the process of dividing and subdividing, in the 
same threefold manner, everywhere with a dull monotony char- 
acterizes the Hegelian system. 

Herbart, too, though not as an uncritical follower of Hegel, 
adopts the threefold division of philosophy. With Herbart this 
division follows from his peculiar conception of the nature of 
philosophy. This he defines as "the elaboration of conceptions." 
The first stage of elaboration clarifies, distinguishes, and relates 
the conceptions in the form of valid judgments and conclusions. 
Hence results Logic, the first branch of philosophy. The sec- 
ond stage eliminates those conflicting elements in the concep- 
tions which appear when we endeavor to combine them into 
an harmonious view of the world; this occasions the need of 
Metaphysics. ^Esthetics, the third division of philosophy, arises 
when, to the conceptions, we add ideas of value, — conceptions 
that " occasion an increment of consciousness in the form of a 
judgment expressing assent or dissent." 1 

A host of later and less celebrated writers on philosophical 
discipline illustrate the same truth. Each finds a larger or 
smaller number of divisions necessary or convenient, according 
to the system of philosophical tenets which he wishes to advo- 
cate, or according, at least, to his dominating conception of what 
philosophy ought to be. One writer, who considers that philos- 
ophy is but the science and critique of cognition, would divide 
it into (1) a general Theory of Science, and (2) a Theory of Con- 
duct. 2 This, of course, reminds us at once of Kant. Another 
writer, in the spirit of Hegel, maintains that there must be 

1 Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in die Philosophie, ed. Leipzig, 1850, p. 47 f. 

2 Riehl, Philosophischer Kriticisraus, Band II., Theil ii., p. 1 ff. 



166 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 

three main divisions of philosophy, since the one totality dis- 
tinguishes itself into two fundamental and essential parts, and 
then unites itself into a higher Unity. Accordingly, we are to 
divide the whole field into (1) Philosophy of Nature, (2) Philos- 
ophy of Spirit, and (3) Philosophy of Life. 1 Yet another, who 
believes that the aim of philosophy is to give us both a view 
of the world at large and a theory of life, would have us dis- 
tinguish — (1) a general World-schematism; and this naturally 
breaks up into (2) the doctrine of the Principles of Nature, and 
(3) the doctrine of the Kingdom of Man. 2 

But that view of philosophy which aims to unite in one sys- 
tem the principles of all Being and all Knowledge naturally 
finds something like the following divisions necessary : (I.) Phi- 
losophy of Cognition, which subdivides into (1) Doctrine of 
Ideation and (2) Doctrine of Knowledge ; and (II.) Philosophy 
of the Existent, comprehending (1) the philosophy of the bodily- 
existent, or Philosophy of Nature, (2) philosophy of the spirit- 
ually existent, or Psychology, and (3) Philosophy of Human 
Conduct. The last subdivision comprises Ethics, ^Esthetics, and 
the Philosophy of Eeligion. 3 The division proposed by Professor 
Ferrier in his " Institutes of Metaphysic " 4 is obviously based 
upon the same conception as that of the writer last cited. Fer- 
rier makes Epistemology , or the answer to the question, What is 
Knowledge ? and Ontology, or the answer to the question, What 
is true Being ? the " two main divisions of philosophy." Strangely 
enough, — and somewhat inconsistently with the conception un- 
derlying this main division, since the question, What is the 
limit of knowledge ? is epistemological, — he introduces a third, 
"intermediate section of philosophy," which he calls Agnoio- 
logy. This is the theory of true ignorance (\6yos t% ayvotas). 

1 Biedermann, Philosophie als Begriflfswissenschaft, Theil i., Vorrede. 

2 Diihring, Cursus der Philosophie als streng wissenschaftlicher Weltanschau- 
ung und Lebensgestaltung, p. 10 f. 

3 For this elaborate and in many respects satisfactory scheme of philosophical 
discipline, see J. H. von Kirchmann, Katechismus der Philosophie. 

* See p. 47 f. 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 167 

Another class of writers make the division of philosophy sub- 
ordinate to their conception of the relations it sustains to re- 
ligious belief or to the life of conduct. Thus one author, 1 who 
holds that philosophy is the science of what is supreme and 
most important for human welfare, and has for its business to 
guide our choices in accordance with ideas of " value," or worth, 
divides the entire field into four distinct parts. These four are 
theology, metaphysics, cosmology, and the theory of conduct. 
Another writer takes his point of starting from the proposition 
that philosophy deals only with the supersensible Eeal, and pre- 
supposes as its subject man as a spirit in the image of God, the 
Absolute Spirit. Philosophy of Nature is then a contradiction. 
The main divisions of philosophy are, accordingly, given as : 
(1) Philosophy of Religion, (2) of Morals, (3) of Rights, (4) of 
Art, or the Supersensible in Nature. 2 

The most recent important work aiming at a system of phi- 
losophy is by Professor W. Wundt. As might be expected from 
its author, this treatise on synthetic philosophy is everywhere 
conceived and executed in a spirit of fidelity to the method and 
results of the particular sciences. "We have already seen that 
Wundt regards philosophy as a universal science, having for its 
problem to unite the cognitions of the particular sciences into 
a consistent system. On account of the relation in which it 
stands to these sciences, its divisions must be based on the divi- 
sion of the sciences. Two main problems are therefore given to 
philosophy in its effort to treat synthetically all the particular 
sciences. The first of these problems relates to knowing in a 
process of becoming ; the second, to knowing already become 
( Wissen, Werdende and Gewordene). Hence the two main divi- 
sions of philosophy are (1) Science of Cognition, (2) Science 
of Principles. These two divisions are then developed into a 
scheme, which may be tabulated as below : 3 — 

1 F. A. von Hartsen, Grundriss der Philosophie, p. 6 f. 

2 Lichtenfels, Lehrbuch zur Einleitung in die Philosophie, p. 10 f., 17. 

3 System der Philosophie, Leipzig, 1889, p. 33 f. 



168 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 



I. Science 
of Knowledge. 



II. Science 
of Principles. 



Division of Scientific Philosophy. 
1. Formal (Formal Logic). 

A. History of Knowledge. 



. 2. Real. 



1. General, 
or Metaphysic. 



L 2. Special. 



B. Theory of Knowledge, which, in connection 
with formal logic, constitutes Logic in 
the wider meaning of the word, is then 
further subdivided into — 

a. General Theory of Knowledge. 
I. Theory of Special Methods as 
applied to scientific investi- 
gation. 

The systematic exposition of the fundamental 
- conceptions and fundamental laws of all 
science. 

A. Philosophy of Nature, which is subdivided 

into — 

a. General Cosmology. 

b. General Biology. 

B. Philosophy of Spirit, which has three sub- 

divisions — 

a. Ethics. 
5. ./Esthetics. 

c. Philosophy of Religion. 



On the foundation of the three divisions of the Philosophy of 
Spirit, and with the help of a comprehensive survey of human 
development, stands the Philosophy of History. Its aim is to 
give a picture of the whole external and internal life of man. 

Without detracting from the value of any of the foregoing 
attempts to divide the domain of philosophical discipline, none 
of them seems to us quite satisfactory. They all either include 
too much that is not philosophy, or else exclude some one of 
the important branches of philosophy. These faults of redun- 
dance or deficiency arise in each case from the fact that the 
division follows from an inadequate or redundant conception of 
the thing to be divided. It is noteworthy that, in the various 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 169 

schemes for dividing philosophy which we have examined, each 
of the four principal conceptions of philosophy has found ex- 
pression. But these conceptions were found either to include 
factors that do not belong to philosophy, or else to neglect cer- 
tain of its important elements. The scheme of Wundt, for ex- 
ample, provides for much under the general cover of the term 
philosophy which belongs to the particular sciences, — espe- 
cially to the sciences of logic, psychology, and ethics. This is 
pretty nearly inevitable, unless we start our effort at division 
with a conception of philosophy which distinguishes it more 
clearly than does Wundt from a mere systematic sum-total of 
the particular sciences. On the other hand, those schemes of 
division which confine the domain of philosophical discipline to 
special metaphysics (ontology) or to the theory of knowledge, 
and those which over-emphasize the treatment of the ethical 
and religious ideals, omit to mention certain important depart- 
ments of philosophy. 

It is not necessary, in classifying the departments of phi- 
losophy, to commit the error of following one's philosophical 
tenets to either of two extremes. On the one hand, it is un- 
safe to derive this classification, with the show of necessity be- 
longing only to mathematical demonstration, from one's peculiar 
and personal conception touching what philosophy ought to be 
and to hold for true. But, on the other hand, it is unnecessary 
to carry our protest against the systems called " absolute," and 
the deductive method they aim to employ, so far as to deny the 
possibility of any logical division of the different philosophical 
problems. In such a matter as this the middle path is safer. 
The divisions of philosophy are naturally, if not with a strict 
logical necessity, related to the true and comprehensive con- 
ception of the nature of philosophy. But this conception itself 
should be formed by a study of the history of philosophy com- 
bined with such an analysis of the work of reason as is adapted 
to show the relation in which its strictly philosophical results 
stand to those of the particular sciences. If a conception of 



170 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 

the whole domain of philosophical discipline has been formed 
in this way, the separation of its departments or branches is 
easy and safe. 

There are, then, as many divisions of philosophy as there are 
distinct problems proposed by the particular sciences to reason 
for its more ultimate consideration. These problems all con- 
cern aspects of the one great problem of philosophy, — ques- 
tions subordinate to its supreme question. This one supreme 
problem is the formation of a rational system of the principles 
presupposed or ascertained by the particular forms of human 
cognition, under the conception of an ultimate Unity of Reality. 
The particular branches of philosophy are as many as the par- 
ticular forms taken by the inquiries subordinate to the main 
inquiry. So peculiar, however, is the relation in which psycho- 
logy stands to the special discipline called philosophical that 
all the problems of the latter are virtually proposed to it only 
when raised and presented in form already elaborated by the 
psychological method. 

Can man know reality ? and, What is the nature of the 
reality known to man ? These are twin questions, born of the 
movement of rational life. They are so related, both as re- 
spects the character of the inquiries they raise, and also as 
respects the method of their pursuit and the influence they 
exert upon each other, that they must forever stand side by 
side in philosophy. The consideration of either of these ques- 
tions cannot dispense with the consideration of the other. 
Neither question can be answered before the other, once for 
all time ; neither has such logical priority as to admit of treat- 
ment without borrowing certain assumed conclusions from the 
other. Both must receive their elaboration and development 
in reciprocal dependence. 

On the one side, then, we may be compelled to admit that no 
scientific ontology, no metaphysical system of principles per- 
taining to real Being as known, can be constructed unless we 
have first made sure that reason can attain the knowledge of 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 171 

real Being. Who, that has not faithfully listened to the cry of 
the Kantian critique, shall confidently proceed with a synthetic 
ontological philosophy ? But, on the other side, it may be 
claimed, in an equally irrefutable way, that it is absurd to ask 
reason to approbate by reasoning its own fundamental postu- 
lates, or to proceed without a movement that is inspired and 
guided by the same principles which it is engaged in critically 
examining. Such a demand has fitly been compared to the 
demand that one shall learn to swim without going near the 
water, or that the hound shall run fast enough to outstrip his 
own shadow. Whose reason is it which summons reason to 
answer for itself ? Surely, it is no other than the same reason 
with that which is summoned. What instrument of rational 
critique is to be employed in vindicating the ultimate truthful- 
ness of reason, or in convicting it of untrustworthiness ? 
Plainly, the same instrument as that which is being critically 
inspected. Will the knife cut ? Shall the knife settle the ques- 
tion of its own ability by a perpetual examination of its own 
keen edge, or by undergoing a ceaseless process of sharpening ? 
Shall it not rather try the issue and wait the result? 

Further remarks upon the relation in which the two prob- 
lems just proposed stand to each other will fitly be made in 
other connections. It is enough at present to call attention to 
their reciprocal dependence. The consideration of the first of 
these problems gives rise to the department of philosophy 
called " Theory of Knowledge " (or Noetics, or Epistemology). 
In the erection of this department of philosophy it is implied 
that the science of descriptive psychology, with its introspective 
or historical method, does not directly furnish the complete 
answer to the problem of knowledge. This science simply tells 
the story in what forms and under what circumstances the 
related states of consciousness arise and pass away. But in 
telling this story, it is obliged to make note of a remarkable 
fact. The psychical states are not all regarded by the mind as 
alike related to an extra-mental reality of Being. Convictions 



172 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 

of truth or of falsehood attach themselves to the conceptions of 
this reality. Sceptical doubt assails, and critical analysis pa- 
tiently examines and expounds, the meaning and value of these 
conceptions and their accompanying convictions. And hence 
arises a department of philosophy. 

The inquiry, What is Eeality ? gives rise to the second divi- 
sion of this first principal department of philosophy. More 
precisely, the main inquiry of this department may be stated 
thus : What is the content of our complete and most rational 
knowledge of the really Existent ? This division of philosophy 
is Metaphysics in the narrower sense of the word, or Ontology 
in its widest defensible meaning. It proposes a general inves- 
tigation of the essential Being that all real existences have. 

The inquiry, What is Eeality? — according to that twofold 
differentiation of its objects which reason inevitably devel- 
ops — naturally divides itself into two inquiries. General 
Metaphysics has, therefore, two subordinate departments. The 
problems of ontology require a more special and detailed con- 
sideration of the necessary conceptions and presuppositions be- 
longing to the two main classes of being. We inquire, then, 
What is the real Being of the Object known as Not-me ? More 
precisely, one division of metaphysics occupies itself with 
considering the essential nature, connection in reality, and rela- 
tion to the Unity of all Being, which the system of " Things " 
has. The other division of metaphysics raises the inquiry as 
to the real nature of the knowing Subject which is also Object 
known to itself as Me. It investigates the essential nature, 
connections in reality, and relations to the Unity of all Being 
which Minds have. General Metaphysics has, therefore, two 
subordinate branches ; these are the Philosophy of Nature and 
the Philosophy of Mind (speculative or rational Psychology). 

Theory of Knowledge and Metaphysics (in the narrower 
meaning of the word) are the two divisions of the Philosophy 
of the Real. This main department of philosophy, inasmuch 
as both its divisions have to do with the really Existent, — 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 173 

with the possibility, certainty, and limits of the knowledge of 
it, and the systematic exposition of the content of what is said 
really to he, — may have the name of Metaphysics, in the wider 
meaning of the word. It is chiefly in this meaning that Meta- 
physics is not infrequently identified with philosophy. 

But the entire domain of philosophical research and philo- 
sophical system is by no means covered by the conception of 
known Keality, whether it be of Things or of Minds. The 
more penetrating analysis of the constitution of reason discloses 
the presence and influence of certain rational Ideals. The prob- 
lem of the essential nature and ground of these Ideals in this 
world of Reality is one of those problems in the solution of 
which psychological science acts as the propaedeutic of philoso- 
phy. The task of philosophy with this problem also is one of 
further analysis, elaboration, and synthetic reconstruction. The 
material thus prepared for philosophical handling is gathered 
from many sources and from over an exceedingly wide area. 
Its preparation requires not only a study of the developing psy- 
chical life of the individual, but also of the developing life of 
the race. The latter expresses itself in manners and morals, 
in laws and political association, in the growth of every form 
of artistic production, and of the appreciation of whatever is 
called beautiful, in the actual world of physical and psychical 
existences. 

But a department of philosophy begins to be founded only 
when these phenomena and the generalizations which they 
sustain are considered from the philosophical point of view, 
and are treated with the method of analysis and synthesis pe- 
culiar to all philosophical investigations. These presupposi- 
tions and discovered principles of all those sciences which deal 
with groups of phenomena called ethical or sesthetieal, consti- 
tute the problem of the Philosophy of the Ideal. The analysis 
of the factors of this problem shows the relation of the Ideal in 
General to the constitution of human reason. The effort of 
philosophy, in its synthetic and constructive function, is to 



174 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 

found this ideal and rational world upon the world of recog- 
nized reality. Hence, we derive the second main division of 
philosophical discipline, for which the word " Idealology " (or 
rational Teleology) seems to offer a fitting expression. 

The Ideals of Eeason, to which the second main division of 
philosophy has reference, are two, — the Ideal of Conduct, and 
the Ideal of Art. This principal division is, therefore, sub- 
divided into Ethics and ^Esthetics, — both the titles being 
understood to apply to the philosophical, as distinguished from 
the merely scientific, pursuit of these subjects (Metaphysics of 
Ethics, and philosophical — as distinguished from physiological, 
or technical — ^Esthetics). Philosophical ethics moves in the 
sphere of that unique conception which we designate by such 
phrases as " the ought," the morally " obligatory," the ethically 
" right." The uniqueness and importance of this conception, 
and of the problems which it suggests and determines, consti- 
tute the valid reason for devoting to it an entire department of 
philosophy. In this department philosophy touches life in its 
innermost and highly sensitive centres. It aims to show how 
the grounds and issues of conduct take hold on the world of 
Reality ; and how its ideals spring from that world as consti- 
tutive and regulative norms of all reason. It establishes and 
explicates the rational, and therefore the universal and eternal, 
character of these ideals. But if it is faithful to the law of its 
dependence upon the particular sciences, it so accomplishes its 
task as not to warp and violate, but to unfold the rational sig- 
nificance and to establish on real grounds, the testimony of 
ethical phenomena. 

Something similar philosophy essays to do with the concep- 
tion of " the beautiful," in the department of ./Esthetics. This 
conception, too, — however much it be a matter of evolution 
as respects the particular forms of those objects which are 
esteemed beautiful, — is a unique conception. Its character as 
an Ideal of Reason, and its relations to the world of reality, 
philosophy attempts to explicate and to set in place in a system 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 175 

of all philosophical truth. No doubt the sphere of this depart- 
ment of philosophy is especially indefinite as to its limit. The 
content of admitted philosophical truth, which previous investi- 
gations have won in this field, has been particularly meagre. 
The reasons for these defects are not difficult to assign; but 
they do not concern us at present. That under the term 
"^Esthetics" we may fitly describe one of the two subdivi- 
sions of the Philosophy of the Ideal, there can be no reason- 
able doubt. 

The suggestion of Lotze 1 that " for these two investigations 
a third, common to both, may be conceived, — namely, an in- 
vestigation concerning the nature of all determinations of value 
(corresponding to Metaphysic)," — does not seem practicable, for 
the further division of philosophy. Indeed, he himself admits 
that the suggestion has hitherto never been carried out. The 
problem of determining the nature of the general conception of 
" value" apart from the problem of determining the nature of 
the ethically and aesthetically good, is scarcely of the sort to 
serve as the foundation for a division of philosophy. 

The foregoing two main divisions of philosophical discipline, 
and all the subdivisions of both, lead up to the supreme syn- 
thetic effort of philosophy. This effort is to establish and ex- 
plicate the conception of an ideal Reality, a realized Ideal of 
Eeason, in the light of whose Unity all the principles of the 
particular sciences, and therefore all the other departments of 
philosophy, may be systematized and explained. 

May the world of Reality be known, and What is the content 
of this real world, as knowable and known ? What is the na- 
ture of that which we call "morally right," and of that which we 
call " beautiful ; " and What the relation in which these Ideals 
of Reason stand to the world of Reality ? These are the prob- 
lems whose attempted solution divides the domain of philoso- 
phy, and also determines the classification of its schools and 

1 Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, p. 154. 



176 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 



systems. But under the influence of strong practical neces- 
sities and desires, as well as of the never-ceasing intent of 
reason to unify and idealize, all these problems point the way 
toward and help onward the consideration of a final and su- 
preme problem. Is this Unity of Eeality, in which all things 
and all minds have their being, to be regarded as also the ulti- 
mate ground and the supreme realization of the ideals of con- 
duct and of art ? Is the All-Being the alone supremely beautiful 
and the alone supremely good ? May we know such a Being ; 
and How shall we mentally represent the content of such a 
Being ? The answer, so far as answer there be, to the first 
of these questions, carries us back to the department called 
"theory of knowledge." The attempt to answer the second 
question introduces us to the highest and final problem of 
philosophy. The department which specifically deals with 
this problem we call the Philosophy of Eeligion. The an- 
swer to this problem is the crowning, but at the same time 
the most complicated and profound, of the achievements of 
philosophy. 

The departments of philosophical discipline we divide accord- 
ing to the character and interrelation of the great problems pro- 
posed to it by the particular sciences, in the manner shown by 
the following tabulated scheme : — 



I. Philosophy of the Real 
(Metaphysics, in the - 
wider meaning of the 
word). 



1. Theory of Knowledge (Noetics, or Epistemology). 
A. Philosophy of Nature. 



2. Metaphysics (Onto- 
logy, in the wider " 
meaning of the 
word). 



B. Philosophy of Mind. 



II. Philosophy of the 
Ideal (Idealology, or 
Rational Teleology). 



' 1. Ethics (which considers the Ideal of Conduct, — 
Metaphysics of Ethics, Moral Philosophy, or 
Practical Philosophy). 



2. ^Esthetics (which considers the Ideal of Art). 
III. The Supreme Ideal-Real (The Philosophy of Religion). 



THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 177 

The other great branches of research, although conducted 
in the philosophical spirit and with philosophical ends in 
view, — such as the philosophy of history, the philosophy of 
the state, etc., — are not distinct departments of philosophy. 
They are rather complex discussions, drawing their material 
and method from several sciences and from the results of 
the investigation of several of the subordinate philosophical 
problems. 



12 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE THEOEY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

THE second edition of the " Critique of Pure Eeason " is 
undoubtedly more apologetic, both in its tone and in its 
conclusions, than is the first edition. It is in this second edi- 
tion that we read declarations, touching the need and nature 
of a philosophical theory of knowledge, like the following: 
"Philosophy requires a science, to determine a 'priori the 
possibility, the principles, and the extent of all cognitions." 1 
Elsewhere we are told: "Our 'Critique,' by limiting specu- 
lative reason to its proper sphere, is no doubt negative, but 
... it is in reality of positive, and of very important use, 
if only we are convinced that there is an absolutely necessary 
practical use of pure reason (the moral use), in which rea- 
son must inevitably go beyond the limits of sensibility," etc. 
Further on Kant declares : " All speculative knowledge of reason 
is limited to objects of experience ; but it should be carefully 
borne in mind that this leaves it perfectly open to us to think 
the same objects as things by themselves, though we cannot 
know them." And again : " I had therefore to remove knowl- 
edge, in order to make room for belief. For the dogmatism of 
metaphysic — that is, the presumption that it is possible to 
achieve anything in metaphysic without a previous criticism 
of pure reason — is the source of all that unbelief, which is 
always very dogmatical, and wars against all morality." 2 

1 Table of Contents, Introduction, III. 

2 Preface of the second edition (1787). 



THE THEORY OP KNOWLEDGE. 179 

It is sentences such as the foregoing which disclose to us the 
essential method, spirit, and content, of the Kantian critical 
philosophy. This philosophy is a critique of all those alleged 
necessary truths of reason which the so-called science of 
metaphysics is accustomed to systematize. This critique is 
conducted by reason itself in the use of the analytical and 
dialectical method, with intent to promote the interests of a 
rational belief in the principles of right conduct. Kant de- 
signed to begin with the sceptical attitude toward metaphysics, 
to continue in the critical method, and to end with the final 
refutation of dogmatic unbelief and the establishment of ra- 
tional faith. 

The procedure and conclusions of the Critical Philosophy 
were themselves acutely criticised by the greatest thinker 
among the immediate successors of Kant. " A very important 
step," says Hegel, 1 " was undoubtedly made when the terms of 
the old metaphysic were subjected to scrutiny. . . „ The old 
metaphysicians accepted their categories as they were, as a sort 
of a priori datum not yet investigated by reflection. The 
critical philosophy reversed this. Kant demands a criticism of 
the faculty of cognition as preliminary to its exercise. That is 
a fair demand, if it mean that the forms of thought must be 
made an object of knowledge. Unfortunately there soon creeps 
in the misconception of seeking knowledge before you know. 
. . . True, indeed, the forms of thought should be subjected to 
a scrutiny before they are used : yet what is this scrutiny but 
ipso facto a cognition ? So that, what we want is a combina- 
tion in our process of knowledge of the action of the forms of 
thought with a criticism of them. The forms of thought must 
be treated on their own merits, apart from all other conditions ; 
they are at once the object of research and the action of that 

1 Encyclopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, Heidelberg, 
1827 (or sixth vol. Collected Works) §§ 40 ff., and notes taken in lecture by Hen- 
ning, Hotho, and Michelet ; Translation, The Logic of Hegel, by Wallace, 1874, 
p. 69 f. 



180 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

object. Hence they must examine themselves, determine the 
limits and show the defects attaching to their very nature." 
Thus much from Hegel, upon the Kantian view of the relation 
existing between the critical theory of knowledge and a syn- 
thetic philosophy. 

As to the conclusions of Kant respecting the possibility and 
the limits of knowledge, Hegel — of course — takes many ex- 
ceptions. " Thoughts, according to Kant," says he, " although 
universal and necessary categories, are only our thoughts, — sepa- 
rated by an impassable gulf from the thing, as it exists apart 
from our knowledge. But a truly objective thought, far from 
being merely ours, must at the same time be what we have to 
discover in things, and in every object of perception. . . . Though 
the categories, such as unity, or cause and effect, are strictly 
within the province of thought, it by no means follows that 
they must be ours merely, and not also characteristic of the 
objects. Kant, however, confines them to the subject mind, 
and his philosophy may be styled subjective idealism." "A 
general remark may still be offered," says Hegel, farther on, 
" concerning the result at which the critical philosophy arrived 
as to the nature of knowledge, — a result which has grown one 
of the axiomatic beliefs of the day. In every dualistic system, 
and especially in that of Kant, the fundamental defect makes 
itself visible in the inconsistency of unifying at one moment, 
what a moment before had been explained to be independent 
and incapable of unification. And then, when unification has 
been alleged to be the right state, we suddenly come upon the 
doctrine that the two elements (i. e., Being and Knowledge), 
which had been denuded of all independent subsistence in 
their true status of unification, are only true and actual in their 
state of separation. ... In the Critical doctrine, thought — or, 
as it is there called, Beason — is divested of every specific form, 
and thus bereft of all authority. The main effect of the Kan- 
tian philosophy has been to revive the consciousness of Beason, 
or the absolute inwardness of thought. . . . Henceforth, the 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 181 

principle of the independence of Eeason, or of its absolute 
self-subsistence, will be a general maxim of philosophy, as well 
as a current dogma of the time." 

The views of Kant and Hegel, as indicated by the foregoing 
quotations and as fully to be understood by a critical study of 
their writings, represent the two opposed positions of modern 
philosophy touching the problems raised in the attempt to form 
a theory of knowledge. Indeed, these views cover nearly all 
that is essential which can ever be said upon the subject of 
Noetics. For this department of philosophy, from its very 
nature, can scarcely hope to derive important new material 
from the growth of the particular sciences. Its business is the 
critical and synthetic treatment of the presuppositions of all 
knowledge, with a view to determine the nature, extent, and 
certification of knowledge itself. 

It is true that we may speculatively hold before the mind 
the representation of an evolution of reason which shall affect 
fundamentally its own essential nature as reason. But out of 
the bare possibility of such an act of imagination we can derive 
nothing for the purposes of a scientific and philosophical theory 
of knowledge. If the process of evolution is thought of as 
involving an essential change in the fundamental forms of 
reason itself, then all possibility of establishing the reality 
of an evolutionary process, and of thinking its nature and laws, 
is at an end. That we may have mistaken the unessential for 
the essential, the changing and developing for the eternal princi- 
ples of all change and development, is indeed thinkable. Rut 
to trust reason for the discovery and validating of a universal 
law of evolution, which is to be so conceived of as to annul 
the validity of the universal elements of all law, is certainly 
impossible. So also is it thinkable that the progress of psy- 
chological science should disclose important new principles 
as regards the avenues, sources, and expansion of human 
knowledge. But even the attempt to think of these avenues 
and sources, and of this expansion, as validating what is con- 



182 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

tradictory of, or foreign to, the constitutional function of reason, 
ends in absurdity. 

As regarded in one aspect, then, we find that the profoundest 
and most difficult problems of philosophy belong to the depart- 
ment of Noetics. This is true if we measure their depth and 
difficulty by the acuteness and comprehensiveness of reflective 
analysis necessary to explicate them. They are profound be- 
cause they lie buried in all concrete experience, — buried and 
concealed in such manner that ordinary analysis does not serve 
even correctly to state or clearly to raise these problems. They 
rise into reflective self-consciousness with a scientific shaping, 
late in the history of the individual and of the race. They are 
difficult, because no method of apparent solution prevents their 
being brought up anew, and yet in substantially the same form, 
for further consideration. They are like ghosts, with which it 
is hard to grapple, and even yet harder to lay so that they will 
not make again a troublesome apparition. Every age and every 
thinker may ask the question : Is then, after all, the truth at- 
tainable ? Is not all the labor and acquisition of reason itself 
illusory ? 

But, in another aspect, the only possible, or best feasible, 
solution of the problems of Noetics lies not far below the 
surface. The problems are comparatively easy of solution, if 
we apply the measure of specific research and technical in- 
formation necessarily involved in the attempt. The philos- 
ophy of nature and the philosophy of mind, philosophical 
ethics and aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion, may always 
expect an indefinite expanse of their horizon, as the result of 
the development of the particular sciences on which they de- 
pend. But the theory of knowledge will, so far as we can anti- 
cipate, require only that the inquirer should move over the 
same narrow circle of analytical reflection, to the end of time. 
Lengthy and learned treatises upon the main questions of No- 
etics will scarcely seem to bring their authors, or the rest of 
mankind, much nearer to the final truth. The strength of con- 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 183 

viction which attaches itself to the affirmative answer to the 
inquiry, Is there in the entire content of self-consciousness any 
certification possible of the truth of reality ? cannot be made 
to correspond to the wealth in details of the arguments adduced 
to support the conviction. 1 The whetting of the knife is neces- 
sary, but need not occupy us long. The tuning of the instru- 
ments is also necessary, and may profitably be done before the 
audience ; but it should only last until we feel confident that 
they are capable of producing a harmony. And even this con- 
fidence we shall never attain, until more or less of harmony 
has actually been produced by playing them when already in 
fair tune. 

This somewhat peculiar mixture of embarrassments and 
advantages which belongs to the discussion of the theory of 
knowledge should not be lost out of mind. It may serve to 
make us the more satisfied for the present with the brief 
remarks which the limits of this chapter permit. These 
remarks will keep in view the excellences and the defects of 
both the Kantian and the Hegelian positions toward the prob- 
lems of Noetics.. 

First of all, something should be added to what has already 
been said (page 170 f.) concerning the logical relation in which 
this department stands to the other departments of philosophy. 
It is not mere excess of arbitrary scepticism which has caused 
the great multitude of modern thinkers since Locke, and espe- 
cially since Kant, to insist upon a thorough and satisfactory 
criticism of man's power to know as a logical prius of any 
metaphysical system. The scepticism involved in this demand, 
and the critical examination necessary even provisionally to sat- 
isfy the demand, are of the very essence of that method which 
must be employed in philosophy. But the scepticism, just so 
far as it scientifically establishes limits to knowledge, limits 

1 This statement might be confirmed by calling attention to the fact that 
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Hegel's Logic are both, at the same time, the 
most important and suggestive, and the most diffuse and repetitious, of philo- 
sophical treatises. 



184 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

itself ; it is self-limiting. The critique of reason, the more thor- 
ough it becomes, explicates the more thoroughly the grounds 
and nature of the self-confidence of reason. It demands for 
its own procedure this same self-confidence ; for it is, essentially 
considered, the self-criticism of rational mind. 

A theory of knowledge can, therefore, never legitimately end 
in scepticism ; to bring it to this issue is to terminate the pro- 
cess of reflective analysis in absurdity or in the dogmatic refusal 
to think at all. The beast when driven till tired may refuse to 
stir ; or maddened by goading, may leap the barriers and run 
blindly amuck. But either form of behavior in man is an 
obvious abandonment of rational method. If we were gods, 
commissioned to examine and test the fidelity of human thought 
and knowledge, in its highest forms, to extra -mental reality, it 
is thinkable that we should find grounds for a favorable or an 
unfavorable report. But if we were gods, and were as such 
stimulated by curiosity to examine critically the grounds of our 
own divine knowledge, it is unthinkable that the final result of 
this examination should be in principle any more reassuring than 
that attainable by us as rational men. Divine knowledge is 
still knowledge, though it be divine ; as knowledge it must in 
some form bear within itself the grounds and evidence of its 
correlation with reality. 

No theory of knowledge, however far the critical process 
employed in its construction be pushed, can discover other 
grounds for the certification of knowledge than those which 
lie in the content of knowledge itself. No point of view outside 
of reason, as it were, from which to criticise reason, is possible 
of attainment. If this be a disadvantage, it is a disadvantage 
not peculiar to our knowledge and our truth, but to knowledge 
and truth as such. 1 Whenever we even attempt to think of a 
knowledge that takes the knowing subject out of and beyond 
the fundamental forms of his own knowledge, and that 

1 Comp. Lotze, System of Philosophy, Part I., Logic, Bosanquet's Translation, 
1884, pp. 414 ff. 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 185 

envisages him with a truth of reality which is something more 
than truth known as universally valid to this subject, we land 
ourselves at once in absurdity. This limitation of the grounds 
and the certification of knowledge to the content of knowledge, 
need not, however, be regarded as a deprivation peculiar to man. 
On the contrary, we certainly have the choice — and there are 
grounds on which it is wise to make it — of regarding this power 
of reason to raise and press the critical inquiry, even to the very 
foundations on which it itself reposes, and to make its own 
self-limitation and self-consistency the goal of all this inquiry, 
as a chief possession and pride of reason. 

It follows, therefore, that no possible or thinkable way exists 
of certifying the truth of what is known, except the way of 
subjecting the content of knowledge to a critical analysis, with 
a view to determine what, when most thoroughly and consis- 
tently envisaged and explicated, it actually is. So far as Kant 
and his followers insist upon this truth, their conclusions are 
beyond all possibility of successful assault. Furthermore, no 
psychological doctrine of a faith-faculty, or of a form of rational 
activity called " belief," no hypothesis of an intellectual intui- 
tion or transcendental dialectic, no claim for exceptions in 
behalf of certain species of truth called ethical or religious, can 
possibly withstand this critical conclusion. Strangely enough, 
— so it would seem to any one who does not keep constantly 
in mind the historical fact that the Critique of Pure Reason 
was in its author's purpose subsidiary to the Critique of Prac- 
tical Eeason, — few writers on philosophy have appeared to 
be greater sinners in this respect than Kant himself. In the 
passages already quoted, as all through his critical philosophy, 
he would limit speculative " knowledge " of reason to objects of 
experience. Objects that are really existent, like God, the Soul, 
and Free "Will, we may " think," but cannot "know." The think- 
ing may, indeed, be with belief, but cannot be called knowledge. 
" I had therefore," says he, " to remove knowledge, in order to 
make room for belief." 



186 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

But the Kantian language, and all the argument of which it is 
the expression and outcome, most unfortunately reverses the real 
distinction between thinking and knowledge as dependent upon 
a connection with belief. Belief is not a rational act opposed 
to or contrasted with knowledge ; but to convert thinking into 
knowledge, the thinking must be not only rationally consistent 
and rationally grounded, but suffused and supported by convic- 
tion or rational belief. 1 That which we may simply think, we 
cannot be said to believe any more than to know. Knowledge 
requires conviction as truly as it requires thought; and in 
knowledge both thought and conviction imply a reference to 
reality. All truth known is truth both rationally thought and 
rationally believed in. The thought and the belief, if they 
belong to knowledge (as distinguished from opinion, from the 
mere passive having or active forth-putting of states), implicate 
— their very nature is such — a correlated reality. 

The Kantian theory of knowledge also, of necessity, breaks 
down when it virtually tries to vindicate for the metaphysics of 
ethics and the practical reason what it had denied as forever 
impossible in the functioning of the pure speculative reason. 
We say " virtually," for its author obviously foresaw that both 
scepticism and dogmatism would, from their respective points 
of view, attack his transcendental ethical system ; and he strove 
hard to defend it against the charge of inconsistency. Kant 
will not call the practical reason " pure," because he wishes not 
to assume a pure practical reason, in order rather to show that 
it exists. But its existence being shown, he considers that it 
stands in no need of a critique to hinder it from transcending its 
limits ; for it proves its own reality and the reality of its con- 
ceptions by an argument of fact. We may know the funda- 
mental law of the practical reason ; it bears the form of a 

1 Comp. Wundt, System der Philosophie, p. 90. " Alles Erkennen ist somit 
ein Denken, mit welchem sich die TTeberzeugung von der Realitat solcher Objecte 
und objectiver Beziehungen verbindet, die dem Vorstellungsinhalte der Gedanken 
entsprechen. " 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 187 

command, — a categorical imperative : " Act so that the prin- 
ciple of thy will can at the same time be accepted as the 
principle of a universal legislation." Whatever principles are, 
as necessary convictions, attached to this principle, are postu- 
lates of the pure practical reason. Hence we find Freedom, 
Immortality, and God restored from the spaces swept empty 
by the critique of speculative reason. 

But Kant's categorical imperative is itself only an imperfect 
and faulty generalization from empirical data of ethical feeling, 
judgments, and conduct. It is not even an exact summary of 
the testimony, in reality, of human moral consciousness. Were 
it a true generalization, however, and therefore worthy to be 
itself called a knowledge, it could be shown to be dependent 
for its validity upon many subordinate conceptions and con- 
victions which must also have the validity of known truths. 
Otherwise, the categorical imperative itself is condemned as a 
vague and illusory dream of the individual consciousness. 
Metaphysical postulates, other than the three acknowledged 
postulates of the pure practical reason, with that inseparably 
adhering conviction which makes them principles of all knowl- 
edge as well as of all thought, enter into the very substance of 
this categorical imperative. Beings, with powers called " wills," 
rationally answering to ends that involve other beings not them- 
selves but like constituted, and who may be expected to act as 
bound with their fellows in a system of moral order, — all this, 
and much more, is involved in the main principle of the practi- 
cal reason. But what an infinity of knowledge, made knowledge 
by the suffusion of rational thinking with rational conviction, 
and, in some sort, placing the mind of the individual face to face 
with a world of reality, is here ! Some of these are the very 
things of which we have been told, as the result of the critical 
process applied to speculative reason, that they may not be 
spoken of as " known," but may only be permitted to thought, 
without hope of finding content for the empty form, no matter 
how much we extend the bounds of experience. If these postu- 



188 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

lated entities and relations are not real, then the categorical 
imperative and all it implicates is but a dream, — nay, it is only 
the dream of a dream. Must we not then, in consistency, either 
include all — and especially the categorical imperative with its 
accessory postulates — under the condemnation uttered by con- 
sistent scepticism, or else retrace the steps passed over in the 
criticism of speculative reason, and discover grounds for a larger 
" knowledge," with its eternal accompaniment of rational faith ? 

The same fate must await all those theories of knowledge 
which end in scepticism, as the result of critical processes. Nor 
is the fate much better of those theories which endeavor to save 
from scepticism certain portions of the content of human knowl- 
edge, while denying in general the possibility of validating knowl- 
edge as such. The principle of self-consistency is of the last 
importance to reason. It is, in fact, only one form of stating 
the undying self-confidence of reason. The practical exhorta- 
tion of experience in noetical philosophy is then : Let us by 
all means maintain a rational consistency. 

The maxim of maintaining a rational consistency is violated 
by those theologians who decry speculation and have no confi- 
dence in metaphysics, while at the same time they assume for 
themselves a knowledge of God, or even a rational faith in him. 
It is violated by those students of physics who remain agnostic 
toward all possibility of establishing a rational knowledge of 
those objects with which theology and philosophy are con- 
cerned ; while at the same time they assert a valid and indu- 
bitable knowledge of physical entities and forces, and of the 
laws of the behavior of these assumed realities. We cannot 
play fast and loose with agnosticism, in our forming and hold- 
ing of a theory of knowledge. The only legitimate outcome 
of applying the sceptical and critical process to man's power 
of knowledge is the more consistent reconstruction of the 
system which the content of knowledge involves. This is 
possible only through that faith in the work of reason which 
is its inalienable possession and right. 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 189 

To sum up the case, then a sceptical view of the possibility 
of knowledge is self-limiting , its inevitable issue is the recog- 
nition of the absurdity and self-destructive character of unlim- 
ited doubt. A critical view of the actual process and content 
of knowledge is necessary to indicate what knowledge is, and 
what are its limits. For the principles of knowledge, its nature 
and limitations, are to be disco T ered only as they are implicated 
in the act and product of knowledge itself. They are not extra- 
neous to it ; they cannot be regarded as imposed upon it from 
without. The certification of knowledge also can be found only 
by the method of reflective analysis applied to the actual content 
of knowledge. No certainty derived from outside of or beyond 
this content of knowledge itself can ever be gained ; no such 
form of certification is even thinkable. To expect more, to 
claim more, even to try to conceive of more, ends in irrational 
absurdity. It is like the effort to think how a being would 
know who had no formal laws or actual content of knowledge. 
If reality is to be known, the attempt to establish by a critique 
of reason a tenable theory of knowledge assures us that the 
reality must be envisaged or implicated in the content of 
knowledge. 

Such a positive, intelligent, and intelligible theory of knowl- 
edge, as can alone claim all the valid and advantageous results 
of both scepticism and criticism, can do nothing more than to 
exhibit the consistent system of all those principles — laws, pre- 
suppositions, and concomitant convictions — which it finds in- 
volved in the actual process and products of knowledge. And 
when we say process and products, we are only testifying to 
the power of reflective analysis to envisage and regard knowl- 
edge in two related aspects. These are the aspect of the for- 
mative activity, the knowing subject ; and the aspect of the 
formed material of knowledge, the object known. In the actual 
life and growth of knowledge the two aspects exist in indis- 
soluble union ; subject is subject in reference to object, and 
object is object in reference to subject. 



190 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

But the question may be asked, — it is a fair and important 
one, — What if no amount of philosophical thought, however 
penetrating, comprehensive, and candid, succeeds in producing 
a " consistent system " of the principles of all knowledge ? 
Must we not then resort to a dogmatic scepticism or to ag- 
nosticism in this department of philosophy ? Or if we shrink 
back, on ethical or aesthetic grounds, from being thoroughly 
consistent in denying the possibility of all knowledge, may we 
not save the reality of certain special objects of religious cogni- 
tion by introducing them through some scheme of faith, or of 
revelation, to the human soul ? The affirmative answer to 
petitions like the foregoing has been given, by no means in- 
frequently, in the history of human thought. But it has 
always ended in failure, shame, and distress for both those 
who have given and those who have received it. In saying 
this, we do not deny the value and rational nature of faith ; 
on the contrary, we are engaged in maintaining views of phi- 
losophy which support the claims of rational conviction. Nor 
do we deny the possibility of revelation, or of the conveyance 
of truth concerning non-sensuous reality through other means 
than sense-perception and ratiocination. We cannot admit con- 
clusions, however, which involve the contradiction of reason's 
confidence in the existence of rational truth, and in the possi- 
bility that this truth may be known by activity of reason. 

Positively, however, the theory of knowledge should take into 
account the application of the definition of all philosophy to its 
own case. Philosophy is progressive rational system. The self- 
knowledge of reason in the formation of a theory of knowledge is 
therefore progressive. The lesson to be learned from failure to 
construct the principles of knowledge into a consistent, and so 
into an acceptable and defensible system, is not, therefore, a les- 
son of utter scepticism or of despairing agnosticism. It is rather 
an invitation to do over again the work of thinking in its applica- 
tion to knowledge. It is a call to a better acquaintance with the 
actual processes of knowledge, in perception and self-conscious- 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 191 

ness, as made known by empirical psychology. It is a call to 
better acquaintance with the laws and processes of thought, as 
modern logic, after centuries of slumbering in the nursing arms 
of the giant Aristotle, has awakened to investigate and describe 
them. It is a call to a more profound metaphysics, to a more 
thorough analytical and synthetic reconstruction of those prin- 
ciples which we ascribe to all that is really existent. In brief, 
it is a demand for doing over again and more thoroughly the hith- 
erto only partially successful work of this branch of philosophy. 

General considerations like the foregoing must maintain 
themselves in the discussion of the subordinate problems of 
the philosophical theory of knowledge. These problems may 
be presented in the following three questions : What is knowl- 
edge ? What are the limits of knowledge ? How comes, and 
what is, the certainty of knowledge ? The internal relations 
among these questions are such that the answer of each in- 
volves the answer of the other two ; the answer of all three 
depends, in turn, on the view we take of the one problem with 
which this department of philosophy deals. 

Strictly speaking, the answer to the question, What is knowl- 
edge ? cannot be derived by either deduction from some more 
general principle, or by induction from particular experiences of 
knowledge. Strictly speaking, then, knowledge cannot be de- 
fined. It can, however, be so described as to render it possible 
of recognition from among other psychical processes and states ; 
its content can by reflective analysis be so explicated as to 
make the factors, presuppositions, and laws of all knowledge 
clear. To recognize the impossibility of defining knowledge, 
we have only to consider that definition itself implies a complex 
and elaborated knowledge ; this is more rather than less true 
when the definition is of a subject so involved in all concrete 
experiences as is the nature of knowledge itself. The true and 
perfect definition of knowledge would therefore be a highly de- 
veloped and complicated instance of that which in its sim- 
plicity we seek to define. 



192 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

But • the psychological investigation of the origin of knowl- 
edge does not of itself serve even to describe — in accordance 
with the demands of the noetical problem — the nature of 
knowledge. Nor is the question as to the origin of knowledge, 
properly speaking, a question of the philosophical theory of 
knowledge. If philosophy were speculatively to discuss the 
origin of knowledge at all, such discussion would belong to an- 
other of its departments ; namely, to the philosophy of the 
mind. But what the sciences of psychology, anthropology, and 
(we add, with a deferential protest) biology have ascertained 
touching their peculiar problems, does but serve to make 
more definite and clear the nature and limits of the genuinely 
noetical problem. Knowledge is what it is, in spite of all 
agreement or dispute over the questions which are raised in 
the legitimate attempt accurately to describe how it came to 
be. Whether knowledge, as a potentiality of the race, be a 
direct gift from heaven, bestowed at once with ungrudging 
hand when God made man in his own image ; or whether it 
be the result of evolution from some bioplasmic stuff quite 
incapable of knowledge, although presumably a psychic centre 
of the lowest forms of sensation-complexes, — at any rate, the 
factors, presuppositions, and laws of its present constitution 
remain unchanged. A descriptive science of its origin — were 
it possible to make such a science indubitable at every point 
and complete — would not furnish the solution of the problem 
which the philosophical theory of knowledge seeks. 

It is true, however, that the light which science can throw 
upon the processes and products of knowledge, as respects the 
order of their succession and their dependence upon cognate or 
inferior psychical phenomena, is needed to guide the investi- 
gator in the field of Noetics. Here the light from psychology, 
the science of the individual human mind, is far clearer, and 
therefore more helpful, than that which can be bestowed by 
anthropological or biological theories of the evolution of knowl- 
edge in the race. We would not deny all value and cogency 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 193 

to the latter, however ; on the contrary, we would use them to 
confirm or to invite to re-examination the conclusions of human 
and comparative psychology. 

Among the considerations, which the psychological study of 
the rise of knowledge offers to the philosophical theory of 
knowledge, the following may properly be emphasized. Knowl- 
edge must always be distinguished from the mere having of 
psychical states. This proposition remains unshaken, however 
highly complex or valuable, from the ethical and aesthetical 
points of view, the psychical states in themselves considered 
may be conceived to be. That there should be psychical exist- 
ences whose experience consists solely of a succession of enjoy- 
able states of sensation or of feeling, without reference of the 
states to reality, may perhaps be thinkable. Such beings, how- 
ever, would be without " knowledge." For all states of knowl- 
edge imply reference to somewhat beyond themselves regarded 
as mere psychical states, — however true it may be that this 
somewhat and the reference to it must be given to knowledge 
as implicated in the states. 

Knowledge is therefore chronologically a later and logically 
at once a higher and more fundamental activity of the mind. 
Even in its earlier and more elementary stages of the percep- 
tion of Things and the consciousness of Self, knowledge emerges 
only as preceded by a process of evolution. The psychical ex- 
istence, called man, does not know anything, at first and for 
a considerable time after birth. He has states, — presumably 
of various kinds. These states may be tentatively described 
as sensation-complexes, feeling-complexes, memory-images, voli- 
tions, or motor activities with their accompaniments of pe- 
ripherally or centrally originated feelings of effort, etc. But 
knowledge has not yet dawned within the mind. How knowl- 
edge can arise out of these states, — if by the inquiry we mean 
to ask for anything more than a narrative of the successive 
stages by which perception and self-consciousness emerge and 
clarify themselves, — descriptive and explanatory science of 

31 



194 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

mind cannot say. Such science reminds us, however, of the 
important truth that knowledge, in the case of every indivi- 
dual man, comes as the result of a development. The develop- 
ment is conditioned upon factors and processes of which we 
gain information only as an acquisition of complicated and 
indirect scientific research. 

It follows, therefore, that knowledge implies memory and 
thought. This is as true of those objects called " Things," as 
known in immediate perception by the senses, and of that 
object called "Self," as known in self-consciousness, as it is of 
those objects whose existence is inferred by the most complex 
and circuitous processes of scientific investigation. 

At this point not a little embarrassment may be occasioned 
to the conclusions of analytical reflection by the customary 
theories and terminology of empirical psychology. This science 
is accustomed to reduce all forms of consciousness to three, of 
which knowledge is a distinct and separable one. Memory and 
thought are then regarded as subordinate forms of knowledge, 
consequent upon perception and self-consciousness. We do, 
indeed, need a term to distinguish the general knowledge-ele- 
ment in all psychical states, — the element or aspect of intel- 
lection, as distinguished from the elements or aspects of feeling 
and volition. On the other hand, knowledge, as the philosophi- 
cal department of Noetics discusses its problem, implies mem- 
ory and thought. These processes cannot, then, be considered 
as stages of knowledge, subsequent in time, or logically, to 
knowledge by perception and by consciousness of self. They 
are words expressive of psychical facts and processes on which 
knowledge by perception and self-consciousness is dependent. 

But memory and thought do not, of themselves, constitute 
knowledge, although they condition its attainment. Memory- 
images might rise and fall in consciousness forever ; but unless 
the reference of them to a world of reality were consciously 
made, no knowledge would be implied or would result. And 
thought might elaborate the psychical states as such in an end- 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 195 

less concatenation ; but unless, beyond the reference which 
thought implies to related states of ideation, there were impli- 
cated the reference which all knowledge makes to a world of 
reality, our psychical existence would fall short of the solidity 
of a consistent dream. Thinking, as such, is not real life. 

But perception ( Wahrnehmung) is taking hold on the truly 
real, the really true ; and so is also that knowledge of self 
which is called sometimes " internal perception," or self -con- 
sciousness. For there is no reality, which is knowable in 
immediate knowledge, except the object known (not simply 
imaged or thought) in perception or self-consciousness. Em- 
pirical psychology, with its scientific description and explana- 
tion of related psychical states, can trace the stages which 
mark the birth and development of knowledge. It shows that 
comparison, analysis, and synthesis — whether consciously or 
unconsciously l performed — are pre-conditions of all knowl- 
edge, whether of things or of one's self. But it also shows 
that the full meaning and complete content of knowledge can- 
not lie in the application of this relating activity of the mind 
to the elaboration of its own states. It shows that reality is 
envisaged in every mental act which belongs under those cate- 
gories needed to describe an act of knowledge. This reality is 
not " pure being," or " being as such ; " it is the concrete object 
given to consciousness as implicated in that complex form of 
living which we call by the term " knowledge." 

The " Being " of which the Hegelian dialectic treats may be 
regarded by the critics of Hegel as but a systematic ordering 
of abstract conceptions. But the Being that is known by the 
most unthinking mind, in every act of perception or self-con- 
sciousness, is concrete, indubitable reality. The friendly student 
of Hegel, moreover, cannot fail to see that this most abstract 

1 Compare Wundt, Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologie, vol. ii., sections 
on Psychologische Entwicklung der Gesichtsvorstelhmg, Bedingungor und Grenzen 
des Bewustseins, etc. ; Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, vol. i. chapter 
on The Unconscious in the Origin of Sense-perception; Ladd, Elements of Physio- 
logical Psychology, part ii., chapters vi. and vii. 



196 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

(with the exception perhaps of Fichte) of all philosophers 
everywhere manifests a wholesome dislike of mere abstractions. 
This apparent (and in a measure real) inconsistency of Hegel is 
largely due to his exaltation of thought, not only to a supreme, 
but even to an exclusive, position in the realm of rational life. 
Thought serves, indeed, to condition and to explicate the con- 
tent of knowledge. It is therefore necessary both to the earliest 
forms of immediate knowledge and to the extension of knowl- 
edge by scientific and philosophical method. [We here use the 
terms " scientific " and " philosophical " in their most general 
meaning, as expressive of all the further and logically higher 
elaboration of immediate knowledge.] In knowledge, however, 
reality is implicitly given, as concrete object envisaged by the 
subject in the unity of a self-conscious life. It is the business 
of science and philosophy to explicate the content and to inter- 
pret the meaning of these acts of knowledge. But behind or 
above the concrete acts neither science nor philosophy can 
place itself, either to criticise or to explain. This inability — 
if one please so to call it — is of the very nature of knowledge. 
Yet this fact is not significant of the inability of knowledge 
to give us reality ; it is rather significant of the inability of 
thought, as a ratiocinative process, to comprehend or explain 
either the origin or the nature of knowledge. In so far as 
there is knowledge, there is reality known ; in so far as there 
is real knowledge, there is power to know. This is the secret 
of the weakness of Hegel and his followers, that they identify 
reality solely with a dialectical process, instead of showing that 
in all complex rational life, and in all scientific and philosophi- 
cal elaboration of the content of this life, the presence of reality 
is involved. " Objective thought " — to use Hegel's term ■ — is 
the object known as real, because realizing itself, in all self- 
conscious rational life. 

It is also as accompanied with and suffused by conviction 
that knowledge distinguishes itself from the mere having of 
psychical states. That which is known is necessarily believed 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 197 

in as real. To distinguish knowledge and faith as separate 
avenues of receiving truth, and then to exalt one over the 
other as critic and judge, involves a irptorov tyevBos, a primal 
and fatal heresy, toward reason itself. It is true enough that 
most men to a wide extent, and all men to a certain extent, 
believe firmly and passionately in what they cannot be said to 
know. It is also true that the grounds of much of this so- 
called faith are to be found in a too easy acceptance of current 
views, in prejudices arising from the emotional activities of the 
soul. Much of so-called faith is, indeed, of yet lower origin ; 
it is born of base sloth or of selfishness ; it is unintellectual, 
unspiritual, visceral. But similar things may be said of much, 
indeed of most, which passes current for knowledge. Science 
itself is only just learning, but is far indeed from having fully 
learned, how to free itself from such so-called knowledge. 

The foregoing facts militate no more against the possibility 
of knowledge than against the rational power of that convic- 
tion which inseparably belongs to knowledge. Indeed, the 
same process and attitude of mind toward truth may be called 
either belief or knowledge. No one can be said to know an 
object or a relation in the reality of which he does not believe ; 
neither can he be said to believe in the reality of that which he 
does not seem to himself to know. The words " seem to him- 
self," however, mark the fact that all our language, as descrip- 
tive of our experience, recognizes in knowledge a factor of 
intellection and a factor of feeling as well. The mistaken 
identification of the former factor with the sum-total of that 
concrete and living experience which is fitly called knowledge, 
results in separating in thinking what is never separated in 
life. No knowledge is without belief ; it is this inseparable 
factor which constitutes one of its chief constituents. 

At this point psychological science might be summoned to 
the instruction and support of Notitics. This science shows us 
that, although it has been customary to speak of perception and 
self-consciousness as forms of knowledge only, in distinction 



198 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

from feeling and volition, perception and self-consciousness as 
knowledge actually involve ever present feeling and volition. 
The theory of perception by the senses doubtless needs recon- 
struction from this point of view. As reconstructed it shows 
that knowledge of " Things " does not come, and could not 
come, by pure intellection. The series of sensation-complexes, 
by synthesis and localization and projection of which the per- 
ception of external objects takes place, is as truly defined and 
combined by its " pleasure-pain " quality as by its merely in- 
tellectual distinctiveness. An ever-present activity of volition 
is also, we believe, the necessary condition of that externality 
which things must have, — or else they are not Things. How 
a being which did not feel and will, as well as have, compare, 
and combine sensations, could know a world of material objects, 
it is impossible even to conceive. The activity in which the 
" Thing " is envisaged as a reality is one, indivisible fact of 
knowledge ; but the description of this activity recognizes feel- 
ing and willing, as well as intellection, among its necessary 
factors. And the same truth holds with respect to that form 
of immediate knowledge which is called self-consciousness. 

It belongs to the detailed theory of knowledge to describe 
more fully the nature of the conviction which belongs to all 
knowledge, whether of things or of self. The same department 
of philosophical disquisition is called upon to defend this con- 
viction against the assaults of scepticism. Such defence can 
be successfully conducted only by allowing scepticism, under 
the control of critical analysis, to run its course to the inevit- 
able issue of showing itself absurd. What we may learn as to 
the meaning, grounds, and limitations of that conviction which 
is an inseparable factor of all knowledge, the theory of knowl- 
edge must itself undertake to disclose. In general it may be 
said that the readjustment of belief, as respects the particular 
objects or relations to which it attaches itself, and as respects 
the subjective intensity with which — so to speak — the attach- 
ment is formed, is a dependent part of the evolution of knowl- 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 199 

edge itself, in the individual and in the race. What to hold 
for true, as certainly known and because known, cannot be 
determined once for all by processes of ratiocination. The 
progressive development, as respects comprehensiveness and 
consistency, of the system of knowledge is the only cure for 
false belief as it is for false knowledge. "False" knowledge! 
We feel a strong repugnance to the use of such a phrase ; and 
with good reason, for it calls out all the protest latent in the 
indestructible self-confidence of reason itself. And yet how 
much that has been called " knowledge," in every field tra- 
versed by the knowing mind, has been all too clearly shown 
to be false ! How much more, now not only firmly believed in, 
but also — if the testimony of the majority be received — most 
indubitably known, will in the future be shown to be false ! 
Is not this as true of those objects of which we suppose our- 
selves to have immediate and indisputable knowledge by percep- 
tion and self-consciousness, as it is of those more remote and 
occult objects and relations in which modern physical science 
so firmly believes ? Our reply to questions like this must be 
an affirmative. 

But on the other hand, the philosophical theory of knowl- 
edge endeavors to show how, rightly explicated and interpreted, 
all these primal beliefs, which enter into the essence of knowl- 
edge, may be allowed to stand. The growth of knowledge by 
successive purification of false beliefs does not prove these 
primal beliefs to be guilty of falsehood. And indeed how 
could they be proved guilty of falsehood ? For in them reposes 
the mind's attachment to truth in distinction from falsehood; 
and even its power to discover and appreciate the distinction at 
all. Ultimately, then, it is positive and progressive rational 
system, disclosing and harmonizing more and more clearly and 
completely the content of rational life, which affords the only 
antidote for philosophical scepticism, Inasmuch as every such 
rational life, in the very forms of its manifestation, actually 
though unintelligently partakes of this unchanging universal 



200 ■ THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

reason, it has knowledge, with its constituent factor of confi- 
dence in itself, as an envisaging of reality. But philosophy, as 
theory of knowledge, explicates the content of knowledge and 
the nature of its constituent conviction, and so renders us in- 
telligent as to what is really known and believed in as known. 

Further remarks in this line are prohibited for a treatment 
so brief as ours ; and, indeed, to treat of what is really known, 
belongs to another department of philosophy. This department 
is Metaphysics, — a department whose problem, with its answer, 
has been seen to be the twin sister of Noetics. 

The philosophical theory of the nature of knowledge may be 
further illustrated by special application to the different Stages 
or kinds of knovdedge. For this purpose a .division may be 
made into immediate or intuitive knowledge (of perception 
and self-consciousness), scientific knowledge, and philosophical 
knowledge. To all these the general remarks just made are 
applicable, though in different manner and different degrees. 
What it is to know, as all men have experience of knowledge 
in the perception of things and in the consciousness of self, has 
already been for the present sufficiently described. 

Scientific knowledge, considered from the philosophical point 
of view, appears to differ from ordinary knowledge chiefly in 
the following two respects. Its improved means of perception 
increase the field of intuitive knowledge; it thus seems to 
open to view a world of wonders that is more real than that of 
our customary experience. Its carefully guarded inferences, 
its verifiable and verified manner of forming conceptions into 
judgments in a systematic and orderly way, extend the field of 
ratiocinative knowledge ; it thus seems to demonstrate the 
nature of things and minds as they most really exist. But the 
reality of things as seen through microscope or telescope is, in 
the sight of the theory of knowledge, not in the least more 
unassailable by scepticism ; nor is it ethically and aesthetically 
more valuable than the realities of ordinary vision. If the 
reality of the world of external perception is not to be known 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 201 

by use of the naked eye, it is not to be known by the use of 
microscope or telescope. The objects thus seen by the trained 
observer are not a whit more easy to verify as essentially real 
than are those which the swineherd daily beholds. If the 
latter are relative and their reality subject to doubt, so are 
the former. If the former imply an indubitable conviction of 
the presence of a known reality, so do the latter. In this sense 
of the word, all knowledge is relative, — that given in scientific 
observations as well as that given in the observations of all 
men. The metaphysics of the two is the same. 

But what a world of reality does physical science open to 
imagination and thought when we follow its modern lofty 
flights of reasoning, — accomplished, shall we say ? with one 
wing of hypothesis and the other of experimental verification ! 
Occult beings called atoms, with wondrous powers of changing 
their states and their relations to other atoms, are ceaselessly 
weaving events and combining themselves into new aggrega- 
tions in that world which no sense-intuition can ever know, 
but which is contrasted with the world of sensible things as 
the alone eternal and real with the fleeting and the illusory. 
Scientific knowledge is of that which is non-sensible and yet 
real. The reality of the objects thus scientifically known de- 
pends, however, upon classes of postulates too-often forgotten. 
It depends upon the reality of the objects known through the 
senses or in self-consciousness ; for these objects afford the 
only data from which the objects known by science can be 
inferred. It depends upon the validity of the thought-processes, 
because it is derived by these thought-processes from data of 
sense-perception and self-consciousness. Only on the presup- 
position, then, that immediate perception gives knowledge of 
reality, and that the processes of thought are valid in reality, 
can the reality of the world which science discloses be vindi- 
cated. And, indeed, scientific knowledge, as scientific, is not 
concerned with reality at all. Its formula of thought is the 
hypothetical judgment. It reasons, — If this is so, then that 



202 • THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

is so, or will be so. Its only test is consistency of thinking. 
Science is satisfied if it becomes a harmonious system of 
conceptions. 

What ! — it may be asked, with the air of being startled at 
the fear of losing so much wealth of reality from our grasp, or 
of being puzzled at hearing that form of knowledge, which calls 
itself " science " pre-eminently, so sceptically attacked, — Is it 
then to be maintained that all this goodly fabric of modern 
physics is nothing more real than a fairly self-consistent dream ? 
Certainly ; unless in perception and self-consciousness there is 
knowledge of reality involved, and unless the movement of 
that elaborative thought which science employs is representa- 
tive of processes that occur in the really existent. A positive 
system of metaphysical beliefs, adopted after an intelligent and 
thorough criticism of human reason, can alone save the modern 
system of physical science from a final banishment into the 
" death-kingdom of abstract thought." Without such positive 
system, so-called scientific evolution is even more abstract 
and unreal than the monotonous tit-tat-too of the Hegelian 
logic. But these beliefs are of the mind, integral and insepar- 
able constituents — or rather themselves regulative and consti- 
tutive — of all those perceptions and conceptions out of which 
scientific system is made. 

It is therefore to a reflective analysis of knowledge itself 
that science must appeal for its validating. Science necessarily 
assumes a position of trust toward the fundamental modes of 
the behavior of mind in thought ; otherwise it cannot itself be 
" science," even in so far as science involves merely the con- 
sistent elaboration of mental images. But if science is to be 
regarded as somewhat more, — namely, as knowledge of a 
world of really existent things standing in knowable rela- 
tions, — then it is bound hand and foot to the fate of noetics 
and of metaphysics. Its devotees may affect or actually feel 
indifference, or they may laugh and even sneer; but they will 
not thus escape their condition of dependency on philosophy. 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 203 

ihey certainly will not improve their condition by substituting 
a mixture of uncritical credulity and dogmatic agnosticism for 
a well-reasoned theory of knowledge. The ascertained prin- 
ciples of science can be held to extend our knowledge of 
reality only as we receive in good faith, after critical exam- 
ination, both the testimony of intuitive perception and the ob- 
jective validity of the forms and principles of thinking. 

The objective validity of the forms and principles of all 
thought is therefore a postulate of science, if science is to be 
called knowledge in the meaning we have attached to this 
word. The term " objective " has been ambiguous in philos- 
ophy ; it will probably continue to be used ambiguously. It 
had different meanings in the two great systems of Noetics 
with a reference to which this chapter begun. Kant, no less 
than Hegel, and in his sceptical Critique of Pure Eeason as 
well as in his dogmatic positing of the categorical imperative, 
affirmed the objectivity of thought. In the Kantian view the 
categories, or constitutional modes of the functioning of the 
understanding, give to thought the objectivity it has. These 
" subjective conditions of the spontaneity of thought " (as Kant 
himself in writing against Eberhard calls them) are constitutive 
of this objectivity. They make our ideas to be objects, appear- 
ances of extra-mental reality (the phenomenally real). 

But besides the categories, and as seemingly necessary to give 
actual content to the otherwise merely empty form- of percep- 
tion and thought, the Kantian theory of knowledge implies the 
Ding-an-sich. This " thing-in-itself," however, can never get 
into consciousness, can never become known. Every concrete 
and actually known Thing has its own content, or material, fur- 
nished by sensation. But sensations are eminently subjective, 
and cannot constitute a knowledge of aught beyond themselves. 
They cannot, then, give knowledge of reality at all. Neither 
can we regard the existence and nature of this reality as known 
indirectly by inference to be the extra-mentdl cause of our sen- 
sations. For cause is itself one of these purely " subjective con- 



204 • THE THEOEY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

ditions of the spontaneity of thought." The same is true of 
reality. Kant's Ding-an-sich can, then, never be an object of 
knowledge, or even of imagination or of thought. It cannot 
legitimately be an object of belief. For what we can neither 
imagine, think, nor know, in that we cannot believe ; and vain 
and illogical are all the efforts of practical reason to find a 
rational ground in reality for conduct, when knowledge and 
reality have once and forever parted company. 

But with Hegel the objective validity of the forms and prin- 
ciples of all thought means something more and better than was 
provided for by the Kantian critique. With Hegel it is just 
these forms and principles, not as dead and barren forms, but 
as factors (" moments ") in a living and eternally true self- 
evolution of thought, which are the true and only reality. 

The satisfactory theory of knowledge accepts the critical 
method of Kant, but pursues it with more thoroughness and 
fidelity than its author employed. It therefore does not come 
to Kant's sceptical and inconsistent outcome. It finds with 
Hegel, as against Kant, that the purely negative and limiting 
conception of Ding-an-sich represents nothing important or 
actual in the processes and objects of knowledge or thought. 
It may therefore be consigned to the dark and chaotic places 
where mere abstractions wander, as the ghosts conjured up by 
speculative minds. It also finds that the positive content of 
the conception, missed by a sceptical analysis, is to be found 
present in every act of knowledge. That extra-m.Qia.tdl reality 
is, all acts of knowledge imply. That it is, they all, as concrete 
instances, demonstrate. What it is, the growth of knowledge 
makes progressively clear. This is true of the individual, and 
it is true of the race. Therefore, the true theory of knowl- 
edge also decides against the system of Hegel, who selected a 
single form of thought, and by a systematic arrangement of 
abstract conceptions aimed to tell us, once for all, what is the 
Eeality which all knowledge envisages and implies. This true 
theory turns rather to science for an extension of knowledge as 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 205 

to what the nature of the really Existent is. Physics enriches 
the content of the now positive conception of the Ding-an-sich. 
Psychology, ethics, aesthetics, sociology, history, and the science 
of religion contribute to the same end. Philosophy in all these 
departments, and with use of all these data, builds up its positive 
system of knowledge concerning this ultimate Unity of Keality. 

What are the precise forms of all thinking, upon the postu- 
lated validity of which the conclusions of the sciences can be 
accepted as knowledge, it is the business of logic in particular 
to consider. It is of these forms — conception, judgment, syl- 
logism, induction, deduction, etc. — that logic treats. But the 
further reflective analysis which philosophy bestows upon these 
forms shows that it is in the particular form of judgment that 
knowledge is expressed. The truth of intuitive knowledge is 
stated in the so-called primary or psychological judgments ; the 
truth of science is stated in judgments that refer to other judg- 
ments as grounds. For validating in reality these forms of 
scientific observation and inference, and so for enriching and 
expanding by scientific progress our knowledge of reality, No- 
etics has no other method than the one of reflective analysis 
and successive syntheses. Here, as elsewhere, it can only clear 
away, as much as possible, the obscurities and apparent contra- 
dictions which attach themselves to the knowledge of knowl- 
edge, as to every kind and form of knowledge. It can then the 
more intelligently reaffirm the confidence of reason in its own 
modes of self-conscious life. 

The so-called principles of all thinking (as distinguished from 
the logical forms of all thought) the philosophical theory of 
knowledge examines with especial care. These it tends, espe- 
cially since the days of Leibnitz, to reduce to two : they are, of 
course, the principle of Identity, and the so-called principle of 
Sufficient Reason. In the statement and explication of these 
principles — especially of the latter — the development of the 
theory of knowledge finds one of its most important and fruitful 
themes. 



206 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

The principle of identity — in its obverse form called the 
principle of non-contradiction — is reason's law, binding it in- 
exorably to consistency. This principle does not warrant the 
affirmation that any unchanging beings, whether things or 
minds, must be assumed to exist; much less that reason is 
compelled to accept the self-contradictory task of telling what 
sort of Being such things and minds could have. It does not 
mean that some rigid and permanent core of a substance, or 
Ding-an-sich, must be possessed by all things and all minds, 
on peril of their losing, otherwise, all claim to be called " real." 
The principle of identity conveys no knowledge whatever as 
to the essence of any particular reality, or as to the unchanging 
modes of the behavior of aught that is real. It simply states 
two ultimate facts pertaining to all thought, — two facts united 
in one principle. The truth of knowledge elaborated by thought 
is necessarily expressed in the categorical judgment; and in the 
categorical judgment the constituent factors of the judgment 
must remain self -same. But it may be asked : What is " self- 
sameness " but identity ; and does not the law compelling self- 
sameness apply to all factors of all judgments and to all 
constituents of all things ? Does it not, moreover, hold true 
of every real being, whether it be a thing or a soul, that it 
must be always identical with itself ? 

The full reply to questions like the foregoing would take us 
into details concerning the nature of conception and judgment, 
and concerning the meanings attached to words such as " Thing " 
or " Soul," which it is beyond our present limits to follow. Two 
or three suggestions as to the character of some of these details 
must suffice. In reality the psychical occurrences which we 
represent under the terms of logic — conception, judgment, 
reasoning — are never, as actual occurrences, stationary con- 
ditions of mind. Thought is a never-ceasing movement of ide- 
ating mind ; and the movement is at every step suffused with 
factors of rational conviction and controlled by law. A logical 
theory which can appeal to psychical facts will then be morpho- 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 207 

logical, evolutionary. The general fact that the states of self- 
conscious ideation called comparison, abstraction, generalization, 
etc., unfold themselves into each other in an orderly way, is the 
general fact which underlies the theory of conception, judgment, 
and the other logical forms. But every actual conception, or 
rather process of so-called conceiving, and every act of judg- 
ment, or rather process of judging, is necessarily a growth. 
This growth is not in violation of the principle of identity ; 
were it so, no conception could actually take place. 

All conceptions of all objects are susceptible of change under 
the principle of identity. So, too, actual judgments are not 
stationary combinations established, by the sign of equality, 
between ready-made entities called concepts. They too spring 
into existence as successive self-evolving states of conscious 
ideation. Eegarded, however, as forms of thought, both con- 
ception and judgment may always be referred to intuitive 
knowledge, in order to see, as it were, whether they will form 
themselves anew with their customary content unchanged. 
The form of conceiving or judging which stands this test, so 
often as repeated, is called " true ; " it represents in thought the 
reality of immediate knowledge. And where (as is generally 
the case) the mind, on inquiring what conception or judgment 
to frame, cannot settle its inquiry by immediate knowledge, it 
reasons its way to the affirmation it seeks. That is, it connects 
the required judgment (determines the direction and end to 
which the process of related states of ideation shall grow) with 
other judgments, in which the former shall find its grounds. 
But knowledge is not reached by thought, nor is truth of 
thought affirmed, until the mental action takes the form ex- 
pressed by the categorical judgment. S is P, is then the uni- 
versal formula for positing the knowledge of truth elaborated 
by thought. To this formula all the knowledge which thought 
affords may, for its legitimate expression, be reduced. 

But neither S nor P can, in knowledge elaborated by thought, 
represent a simple " moment " or single factor of self-conscious 



208 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

life. Both S and P must stand for a composite of such factors. 
What composite we call S, and what P, or that we shall always 
signify the same potential or actual combination by this word, 
the principle of identity does not provide. We may change our 
conception of the nature of any particular S, and of the nature 
of any particular P ; and as well of the relation maintaining 
itself between them. But if we are going to tell " the truth " 
in pronouncing the judgment S is P, the principle of identity 
binds us inexorably to rational consistency. The same elements 
of ideation, combined in the self-same way, must be represented 
by S ; the same by P ; and the same by the copula expressing 
the relation between S and P. Otherwise, S is P cannot be 
tolerated as a judgment expressive of the truth. 

The customary formula of logic for the principle of identity 
in its positive aspect is A = A ; in its negative aspect A is not 
= non-A, or A is not = B. But all forms of statement imply 
the principle itself. For if the principle of identity do not 
apply to the A which is in the place of S, to the A which is 
in the place of P, and to the relation signified by the sign of 
equality, then the formula itself cannot stand. Yet every 
attempt to apply this principle to each of these three con- 
stituents of the judgment must itself take the form of a cate- 
gorical judgment falling in its turn under the principle of 
identity. All expression of this principle therefore implicates 
it, as, from the beginning, controlling the expression itself. 

The principle of identity cannot, of course, be proved, in any 
sense of the word "proof," or in any of the many degrees of 
probability attaching themselves to the proof of all kinds of 
existences and occurrences. All proof, as all attempts to think 
at all, imply the working of this principle with a strictness that 
admits of no degrees. Moreover, no particular existence or 
conception of the existent can be substituted in the formula 
A = A, which shall receive merely by its substitution the 
sanction of the principle. Physics cannot substitute for A 
one of its elementary realities called atoms ; and so maintain, 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 209 

in the name of the principle of all thinking, that — for example 
— the nature of the oxygen or hydrogen atom is forever self- 
same. Psychology cannot substitute for A = A a categorical 
judgment affirming that in reality the soul remains, through all 
changes of states, identical. Not even philosophy can follow 
Fichte in his subtle but fallacious transmutation of the formula 
A = A into the formula Ego = Ego. Physics may show 
grounds in experience for believing that the nature of the 
atoms does not change. Psychology, after pointing out what 
can properly be meant by personal identity, may defend the 
proposition, even by appealing to an invincible belief, in the 
case of the soul. But of atom and Ego alike, — and yet no 
more than of our mental representation of the meanest and 
most trivial occurrence, — if we have knowledge elaborated by 
thought at all, this knowledge must be expressed by the cate- 
gorical judgment under the principle of identity. 

No other subject in Noetics has been treated with so wide- 
spreading and mischievous laxity of thought and speech as the 
so-called "principle of sufficient reason" (Principium rationis 
suj/icientis: Satz des Grundes). In the name of this principle, 
physical science has often, almost with the same breath, decried 
all metaphysics and a priori constructions of reality, and main- 
tained the rational necessity and universality of some one or 
more of its most recent conceptions of force and law. In the 
name of the same principle science has joined hands with phi- 
losophy in the denial of the being of that " personal Absolute 
whom faith calls God ; " and, as well, in the denial of the free- 
dom of the human mind. In its name, as an ultimate rational 
necessity, the claims of scientific knowledge have been so ex- 
tended as to reduce all the problems concerning the world, 
man, and God, to the terms of molecular physics. Thus in 
the name of reason certain highest and most valued ideals of 
reason — freedom, God, and immortality — are made to confess 
their inability to find for themselves a ground in reality. 

That gifted and suggestive but perverse thinker, Schopen- 

14 



210 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

hauer, has nowhere else done better service for philosophy than 
in his treatment of the principle of sufficient reason. This 
service took the two directions of analysis of the principle, and 
exposition of certain fallacies connected with its use. In his 
work on the " Fourfold Eoot of the Principle of Sufficient Eea- 
son," Schopenhauer discusses the principle with a view to dis- 
cover both the common elements of all the forms it takes (the 
" Eoot "), and also its division into cognate but distinguishable 
modes of application (for the root is " fourfold "). Frequently 
in his philosophical writings he exposes with ridicule the 
attempts of physical science to understand everything under 
its own peculiar ways of applying this principle, without resort 
to metaphysical explanations ; while at the same time it intro- 
duces clandestinely a whole host of unexplained and uncritical 
causcB occultce. Without accepting the accuracy and suffi- 
ciency of Schopenhauer's treatment, we refer to it as a legiti- 
mate warning against supposing that physical science can 
dispense with metaphysical causes, and yet maintain a claim 
to explain the world of reality. 

The statement of the principle of sufficient reason is of the 
greatest importance for a theory of knowledge. And yet it is 
doubtful whether scientific precision can be given to any at- 
tempt at its statement. The reason for difficulty here is not pre- 
cisely the same as that which has been noted with regard to the 
principle of identity. In the case of the latter we observe its 
simplicity and absolutely fundamental character, apart from all 
consideration of the nature of particular experiences. In the 
case of the principle of sufficient reason, the difficulty of dis- 
cussing it arises rather from its manifoldness of formal applica- 
tion and the way in which it enters into the conditions of 
different kinds of experience. Ethical and sesthetical consid- 
erations also appear to militate strongly against certain forms 
of conceiving and stating this principle. That we cannot say, 
" Every being must have a cause," is clear from the fact that 
even all scientific explanation, under the law of physical causa- 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 211 

tion, postulates uncaused beings as the very ground of its 
explanation. Physics explains all physical events, and the 
genesis and changes of all physical beings, out of the postu- 
lated and unexplained being of the atoms. The philosophy of 
religion, too, finds in the Unity of the Absolute its ground for 
that interrelation of the phenomena which — so science con- 
siders — demands the affirmation of universal force and uni- 
versal law. Neither can we say, " Every event must have 
a cause ; " unless we are ready to modify our conception of 
cause so as to include under it the relation of motive to voli- 
tion, and of the being that acts to his own particular action, — 
however mysterious the nature of such being and the sponta- 
neity of certain forms of its behavior may be. 

To us it seems that the so-called principle of sufficient 
reason may best be described in something like the following 
way. If the description appears loose and indefinite, it may 
on that account the better fit all the different classes of phe- 
nomena which fall under the principle. 

Psychological science shows us that knowledge is elaborated 
by relating different ideation-states in uniform ways.' In all 
knowledge indirectly attained through processes of reasoning, 
besides the mere fact of the association of the states, the con- 
sciousness of the relation must be recognized. Knowledge 
elaborated by thought implicates therefore the being aware 
of an orderly and rational procedure. But knowledge also 
involves conviction which has reference to reality ; for knowl- 
edge is not of ideation -states, as such, but of objects, — of things 
or minds. Indirect or mediate knowledge implies, then, the 
consciousness of fixed relations, interconnected modes of being 
and action, belonging to the objects. In and by this rational 
procedure all experience becomes articulated, as it were; and 
as far as knowledge seems to go, so far goes the belief in the 
reality of the related objects, and of the relations of the objects. 
This every rational mind, developed to self-consciousness, neces- 
sarily has. This, too, is the basis, in the normal and necessary 



212 . THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

procedure of the mind, upon which rest those extensions of the 
limits of ordinary knowledge which science aims to make. But 
science, or — in particular — physical science, has no prescrip- 
tive right upon this principle ; it has no claim to define or 
limit it, as a principle of all thought, so as to shut out from 
its legitimate use the unscientific multitude or the little group 
of thinkers who, in spite of physics, claim to have a rational 
faith in Freedom, God, and Immortality. 

It would almost seem that the essence of the principle of 
sufficient reason as employed by the sciences can be best stated 
in a practical maxim : Always try to explain. But scientific 
explanation consists in relating the changes of one being to 
those of another being, under the form of fixed and uniform 
sequences. It might also be said that another maxim, as a 
warning, must be added : Remember that all scientific explana- 
tion postulates the presence of the unexplained. For as reflec- 
tive analysis shows, and as science when it comes to rational 
self-consciousness admits, scientific explanations tell only the 
story of the uniform modes of behavior of those beings whose 
existence and natures science postulates as the ground of all 
explanation, but can never explain. 

The philosophical theory of knowledge defends the funda- 
mental principles of all thinking against a sceptical issue to 
their critical examination. It thus validates that extension of 
knowledge which science proclaims. The further examination 
of these principles, and of the conceptions and presuppositions 
implied in their use, belongs to Metaphysics, — in its main 
division under this name, and in its two subdivisions as Phi- 
losophy of Nature and Philosophy of Mind. Without this 
positive outcome to Notifies, however, neither of the two 
branches of Metaphysics can claim to do anything more than 
to represent a consistent schematizing of states of conscious- 
ness. But then without this outcome science itself is nothing 
more. 

Knowledge as extended by thought is, in its latest and 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 213 

highest stage, philosophical knowledge. This knowledge has 
often been called a priori or intuitive. But as customarily 
employed, both these terms are likely to mislead those who 
use them. By a priori we can mean, in this connection, noth- 
ing more than the universal and necessary modes of the be- 
havior of rational mind. The term "universal" we cannot 
understand so as to deny that the multitude of men do not 
self-consciously recognize the so-called categories, while phi- 
losophy itself has not yet succeeded to the satisfaction of all 
in either explicating or cataloguing them ; but also that their 
employment as formal principles by the individual requires 
psychical development. If the categories are forms of being, 
they are so because they are the necessary forms of psychical 
becoming. By the term " intuitive " we cannot mean that it 
is possible to envisage these modes of the behavior of rational 
mind, as it were, in their naked and abstract essential char- 
acter. We can mean only that, while their explication is a 
matter of reflective analysis and discursive thinking, such 
mental effort infallibly finds them implicated in all knowledge 
by thought ; as well as, also, that to doubt that the experience 
which implicates them is knowledge, or that the knowledge is 
of reality, is impossible in consistency with the nature of 
reason itself. 

We cannot, then, claim with Fichte that knowledge of knowl- 
edge, philosophical knowledge, is alone worthy to be called 
science. But we can claim that the objects of philosophical 
knowledge are capable of being, not merely imagined or thought, 
but also known. 

Little need be added concerning the application of the gen- 
eral principles of a theory of knowledge to the remaining two 
of its subordinate inquiries. The true and safe answer to the 
question, What are the Limits of Knowledge ? follows easily 
upon reflection from the very nature of these principles. The 
limits of knowledge cannot be dogmatically fixed, whether 
the dogmatism which attempts this impossible task call 



214 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

itself by its right name, or take the title of scepticism or of 
agnosticism. 

The formal principles which, in a certain sense, exist as 
imitations of knowledge, are those fundamental modes of the 
functioning of mind which philosophical criticism distinguishes 
as implied in all knowledge. Using a figure of speech that is 
perhaps legitimate, but represents only the shadowy outlines of 
the dark region of so-called negative thinking, the fundamental 
forms and laws of every kind of knowledge may be represented 
as barriers beyond which the mind cannot pass. Some of the 
current impressions of being " limited " or " bound " in knowl- 
edge are the result of an uncritical and sentimental refusal to 
undergo the labor of accurate observation and persistent think- 
ing. The impression is increased through a confusion of the 
different stages and modes of knowledge, with a resulting 
attempt to apply terms and conceptions, which belong appro- 
priately only to one stage or mode, to other stages and modes 
where they do not belong. How many a one, for example, 
has tried, with mourning over the " limitations " of his knowl- 
edge, to fancy how an atom of oxygen would look and feel, 
if only one were organically constructed so as to see and 
touch it ! 

Elaborate doctrines and systems of nescience have been 
founded on inquiries no more discriminating than the one 
just suggested. We venture to assert that the entire system 
of Kantian antinomies may be largely resolved into the mis- 
taken attempt to apply the terms of sensuous perception and 
imagination to subjects that admit only of a philosophical 
knowledge. Spencerian agnosticism, and those vagaries of 
Hamilton and Mansel on which this agnosticism as proclaimed 
in the " First Principles " is based, have scarcely so good a 
right as the Kantian antinomies to represent the limits of 
human cognition. That one cannot sensuously picture how 
the boundaries of a space would look in which there is noth- 
ing to see and no eye to see with ; or finds it impossible to 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 215 

" conceive " as a member of the causal nexus a Being that is 
ex hypothesi the Ground of all that interrelated action which 
science both assumes and discovers ; or declines, in the name of 
reason, to make the effort to jumble together innumerable con- 
tradictory so-called attributes and call the compound by a 
sounding title (be it God, the Absolute, or the Unknowable), — 
all this, and much more of the same sort, is not enough to 
establish insuperable formal limitations to all our knowledge. 

That psychological and philosophical analysis, when pushed 
to its final outcome, discloses facts and laws of rational life 
which must be accepted as they are given, and cannot be 
explained, is undoubted. This is the legitimate result of the 
analysis ; and until its outcome can be regarded as, in this 
direction, final, the self-criticism of reason cannot be satisfied. 
Such facts and laws may be said to represent the formal limits 
of the mind's action. The possibility of a different set of facts 
and laws, under different &££ra-mental conditions, or in the 
case of other psychical existences, as a bare possibility, is indeed 
tolerable to the imagination. But the very effort to question 
certain of these facts and laws, involves the mind in an intoler- 
able inconsistency. One may ask, for example, How do things 
seem to an animal with scores of eyes, or with a single periph- 
eral area sensitive to light but unorganized into an optical 
instrument ? or, How do things appear to angels or to fairies ? 
But one cannot ask, How do things seem to beings that are 
devoid of all sense-perception ? without either taking all intel- 
ligible meaning out of the phrase — " things seem " — or else 
landing one's self in irrational consequences. So also may one 
indulge in the pleasing fancy, and even call it a science of 
mental evolution, precisely how it is that oysters and jelly-fish 
and amoebas, or even undifferentiated drops of vegetable bio- 
plasm and blood-corpuscles, are conscious. But the inquiry 
after a Being which is to be mentally represented under terms 
like " Will," " Final Purpose," " Thought," " Unity," " Beason," 
" The Idea," and at the same time as foreign to all the actual 



216 THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 

self-conscious life of human reason, must indeed end in bring- 
ing upon itself insuperable limitations. 

How absurd it is to try to think what thought would be, if 
the "barriers" of the principles of identity and of sufficient 
reason were removed, scarcely any one needs, it would seem, 
to be reminded. 

As to material limitations of knowledge, or the fixing of 
definite barriers to the content of what may be known, the 
theory of knowledge has nothing whatever to propose. That 
can be known which is known ; and in the progress of knowl- 
edge experience is constantly widening the realm of the known. 
As to what we may know, the empirical conditions belonging to 
each kind, stage, and condition of knowledge, practically deter- 
mine. Here science is powerful to assert or to deny ; but both 
its assertions and its denials are, so far as they preserve the 
forms of strict science, merely hypothetical. It may say, for 
example : If the conditions of perception by the senses remain 
the same, then the limit of such perception is to be fixed 
approximately at such a fraction of an inch ; or at a distance 
travelling from which light would have too small intensity to 
excite sensations of sight, etc. But science is becoming in all 
its branches more cautious about arbitrarily fixing the perma- 
nent limits of its own positive domain. Possibly we may soon 
have it proclaimed as a necessary corollary of evolution that 
man will at some time in the future pass the present barriers 
of nescience in matters of rational psychology and the philosophy 
of religion. Then the race will have developed the knowledge 
of God, the Soul, Freedom, and Immortality, and will have 
become as certain of these truths and existences — that they 
are, and what they are — as of the real grounds for the theory 
of evolution itself. 

As to the Certification of Knowledge — how it comes, and 
what it is — we shall content ourselves for the present with 
pointing back to the remarks made in the earlier part of this 
chapter. In effect they may be summed up in the following 



THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 217 

declarations. Verification of the processes of knowledge, as 
valid in reality, that is external to the actual life of the know- 
ing mind, can never be attained. Even the proposal to search 
for such verification is intrinsically absurd. Only by that 
knowledge of knowledge which reflective analysis bestows, can 
a well-founded certainty of knowledge be gained. The theory 
of knowledge is itself, touching the problem of certifying 
knowledge, only the explication of that which is implicated in 
all acts of knowledge. To know, is to be certain ; knowledge 
validates itself. But precisely what it is that knowledge vali- 
dates, — this is an inquiry with which Noetics can deal only by 
way of handing it over to Metaphysics. The latter critically 
examines the content of what is really known. 

Moreover, to reach reality otherwise than as implicated in 
knowledge, is impossible. Thought elaborates the content of 
what is known ; but mere thinking never certifies the reality 
of what is thought. On the other hand, all knowledge is of 
reality ; and to know, is to be certain that somewhat really is. 
What, in its immediate reality, and what in its larger signifi- 
cance and relation to the ideals of reason, is the somewhat 
known as certainly existent, — this it belongs to the succeeding 
branches of philosophy to explore and describe. 



CHAPTER IX. 

METAPHYSICS. 

THE present attitude of many thoughtful minds toward 
that branch of philosophy which is technically called 
Metaphysics is an interesting psychological phenomenon. This 
attitude is sometimes one of strange vacillation between shame- 
faced interest and expressed distrust. It is sometimes also a 
confession of a previous philosophical movement which, within 
the minds of those who maintain the attitude, either through 
the exhaustion of ineffective exertion or inherent lassitude or 
traditional confusion, has sunk below the horizon of a clear 
self-consciousness. Thus it often implies a preference for un- 
scientific and incomplete metaphysical analysis to that which, 
at least, aims at being thorough and scientific. And so we hear 
preachers and even theologians uttering their scorn for meta- 
physics while confidently discoursing the most stupendous onto- 
logical generalizations touching supreme realities. Students of 
the particular sciences there are — both of the physical and of 
the psychological — who with unwavering confidence claim 
theoretically to construct the universe in precise conformity to 
what is really Existent, and yet have small respect for a 
critical discussion of those concepts of Eeality, Space, Time, 
Matter, Motion, Cause, etc., which they are themselves so 
constantly employing. 

There has been much in the history of speculative thinking, 
even since the establishment of the Kantian criticism, to give 
occasion for a weariness of metaphysics. And yet this feeling 
is itself, both in its origin and its form of manifestation, a proof 



METAPHYSICS. 219 

that it is vain to hope for the final exclusion of metaphysical 

inquiry from human minds. The cure for the weariness is not 

a scornful or an indifferent attitude toward further effort of a 

similar kind. Its cure is rather (perhaps after a period of rest 

— if the need of rest he felt by the individual or by the spirit 

of the age) to be found in the cheerful acceptance of the task of 

achieving a better metaphysics. " Jacobi, Fichte, and Schelling 

all belong," says Herbart, 1 " to the age when people were 

singing, — 

" Da die Metaphysik vor Kurzem unbeerbt abging, 

Werden die Dinge an sicli jetzo sub hasta verkauft," — 

a summons which may be rendered into the following elegant 
couplet : — 

" Hear ye ! Things-in-themselves will be sold under the hammer ! 
Since Metaphysics lately deceased without leaving an heir." 

However, as Herbart at once proceeds to remark, we now know 
this age pretty well ; and there are good grounds for the sup- 
position that, in the case of its authors also, Metaphysics simply 
assumed other names, and under cover of them continued its 
existence, — essentially the same as before. This latter interest- 
ing historical fact Mr. Shad worth Hodgson 2 has embodied in 
two lines of his own composition. They are a reply to all 
would-be auctioneers of the effects of a deceased metaphysics, 
and run as follows : — 

" What though Things-in-themselves have been dispersed by an auction, 
Who was the auctioneer ? Why, Metaphysic herself." 

The warning from experience and history, that thinking man 
cannot safely, and indeed cannot long at all, neglect a serious 
inquiry into the nature of Eeality, might be illustrated and 
enforced at indefinite length. Further argument of the case 
does not fall within the limits of a brief treatise like ours. 
Moreover, nothing new could be said in direct answer to that 

1 Allgemeine Metaphysik, vol. i. § 94. 

2 Philosophy of Reflection, i. 162. 



220 . METAPHYSICS. 

sceptical inquiry which would invalidate everything that the 
most careful analysis and constructive thinking can do in 
dealing with ontological subjects. This inquiry will now be 
considered to have been met in the noetical department of phi- 
losophy. Accordingly, we raise the question, What is that 
which is known as really existent ? after having shown that all 
knowledge erects, as of its very nature, a barrier to the sceptical 
questioning of man's power to know the really existent. Not 
that sceptical inquiry can be regarded as at once and forever 
settled by any theory of knowledge. We only claim the un- 
doubted right to proceed to Metaphysics with the self-confidence 
of reason in the principles of its own life as those principles 
are re-affirmed by a positive attitude toward the problem of 
Noetics. 

The inquiry, Wliat is Reality ? gives rise to that division of 
philosophy which we call Metaphysics, in the more specific 
meaning of the word. More precisely, the metaphysical prob- 
lem may be stated thus : What is the content of our knowledge 
of the really Existent ? Bearing in mind, then, the method of 
all philosophical inquiry, we may define this branch of philoso- 
phy as follows : Metaphysics is the critical and systematic 
exposition of those necessary conceptions and presuppositions 
which enter into our cognition of that which we call real. 

But the metaphysical problem perpetually recurs in each one 
of the principal divisions of philosophy. This is the necessary 
result of that conception of philosophy which sees in it the 
search for a rational system of the principles of all the particular 
sciences in their relation to an ultimate Eeality. Indeed, the 
actual organization of human experience compels speculative 
thinking to consider its problems with reference to Nature, to 
Mind, and to the Absolute. Even for its own ideals of the 
beautiful and the morally good, reason strives to find ground 
in that which really exists. We have, then, to undertake the 
philosophical treatment, first of those most general conceptions 
and presuppositions which constitute the essence of all which 



METAPHYSICS. 221 

we call " Eeal " (whether Things, Minds, or God) ; second, of the 
more particular conceptions and presuppositions determining 
the nature of the two classes of realities into which we find our 
experience of reality divided. The resulting departments of 
philosophy are : Metaphysics (in the narrower sense, or On- 
tology), Philosophy of Nature, and Philosophy of Mind. The 
conclusions reached in these departments will necessarily influ- 
ence those to be reached in the subsequent treatment of Ethics, 
^Esthetics, and especially Philosophy of Religion. 

Metaphysics therefore requires the most careful analysis of 
the meaning of a conception which has hitherto been employed 
in a vague and indefinite way. This conception has been pre- 
sented under the terms " Reality," or " the really Existent," etc. 
But what do we mean by these terms ; or rather — since meta- 
physical inquiry is not concerned with the meaning of terms 
any further than is necessary to the clearness and complete- 
ness of its analysis — What is it really to be ? In its ability 
to answer this question metaphysical analysis takes its chief 
interest and finds the most important test of the value of its 
conclusions. We must not, however, expect that the analy- 
sis will result in explaining, descriptively or syllogistically, 
the ultimate elements which it discovers in the answer to this 
question. Just because the elements it seeks are ultimate, they 
do not admit of such explanation. There are indeed no more 
general or specific terms in which to envisage, think, or express 
them ; otherwise the analysis would be condemned as incom- 
plete. Nor do the fundamental " conceptions " of so-called On- 
tology admit of being established by processes of induction or 
deduction ; they are themselves those momenta, or terminal fac- 
tors of mental representation and belief, which enter into all 
knowledge, and so condition and make possible the processes of 
induction and deduction. Neither are they explicable by an- 
alysis resolving them into what are more fundamental forms 
of knowledge or of objects known ; they are explicated by 
analysis as given (data), as implicated in all forms of knowing 



222 . METAPHYSICS. 

all objects that are known. It is only with this understanding 
of the nature of its subject-matter and of the words used in 
speaking of them that metaphysics can proceed. 

The primary and most inclusive category which it belongs 
to metaphysics to discuss is therefore that of " Eeality," or 
-" the really Existent." The terms " pure Being," " Nothing," 
" Becoming," and propositions such as " pure Being = Nothing," 
or " Becoming = Unity of Being and Nothing " have no place 
in metaphysics. Indeed, the discussion of such propositions 
is absolutely without value in any department of philosophy. 
In proof of this statement might be adduced the fact that the 
Dialectic of Hegel moves wholly in the sphere of empty abstrac- 
tions (abstractions, that is, that not simply disregard certain 
forms of our knowledge of reality, but all forms of all knowl- 
edge) and of negative thinking, until it plants itself upon the 
category of Eeality. This fact in part explains the wearisome 
repetitiousness of the Hegelian Logic. Plainly, all the catego- 
ries are here made to do duty several times over, — either as 
mere forms of thinking without content, or as forms of knowl- 
edge with a real content introduced we know not whence, or as 
forms of being, assumed without sufficient appeal to actual 
experience. 

The view of Hegel is opposed by Lotze when explaining his 
own conception of the sphere of metaphysics. This sphere the 
latter limits — and, as we think, rightly — to the real or the 
actual. " Eeal (loirklicli)" says Lotze, "is a term which we 
apply to things that are, in opposition to those that are not ; 
to events that happen, in distinction from those that do not 
happen ; to actually existing relations, in contrast with those 
that do not exist." 1 This language is unfortunate, and does 

i Quoted from Bosanquet's Translation of the Metaphysic, book i., Introduc- 
tion. The translation of the passage is perhaps not altogether a happy one, 
the German being as follows : " Wirklich nennen wir die Dinge, welche sind, 
im Gegensatze zu denen, welche nicht sind ; wirklich die Ereignisse, die ge- 
schehen, im Unterschiede von denen die nicht geschehen ; wirklich auch die 
Verhaltnisse, welche bestehen, im Vergleich mit denen, welche nicht bestehen." 



METAPHYSICS. 223 

not bring out the desired contrast. For things " that are not," 
are not things at all ; events " that do not happen," are not 
events at all ; and relations that do not " actually exist," are 
not relations at all. The contrast which is implied but not well 
expressed in this statement is a contrast between mere states 
of ideation regarded as representing unknown things, events, or 
relations, and things, events, or relations as objects of knowl- 
edge. But even the representative states are known to the 
subject of them directly, and to other minds indirectly, as 
actual events implying real relations (of a psychical kind). 
Moreover, if we use the somewhat uncouth and inappropriate 
word " Things " to indicate all concrete knowable realities, we 
must say that the representative states are themselves actual 
events in real being, — that is, actual states of things. 

We repeat then our declaration that the most primary and 
comprehensive question of Metaphysics is this : What is it 
really to be ? or, in other words, What content must the object 
known have in order that it may be known as really existent ? 

In attempting an answer to the foregoing inquiry our an- 
alysis soon discloses the fact, that that to which the act of 
knowledge, with its corresponding conviction, attaches itself 
as having reality, is never a simple factor. Eeality is never 
a simple being, existing in no particular state or as pure being ; 
it is never a simple indivisible state, that may be considered as 
state of no being, or as state unrelated to any other state ; it is 
never a simple relation, that may be envisaged or felt as a 
relation without implying beings that are related in respect 
of their states. Being, state, and relation — all these and 
perhaps much more — must be implicated, in order that reality 
may exist to knowledge ; in order that there may be Things 
known, Minds known, God known, — in any manner or degree 
whatever. 

The correlate of the foregoing conclusion in metaphysics is 
the fact of psychology, that knowledge (which, as distinguished 
from any form of mere mental representation or of mere think- 



224 METAPHYSICS. 

ing, is the only psychical state that implicates and guarantees 
reality) is a relatively complex and late development of mind. 
Nay, more ; it is an unceasing and never-to-be-perfected growth, 
which, as it expands, embraces more and more of reality. In 
nothing of the nature of psychical activity which falls short of 
knowledge is reality implicated, with any content whatever; 
but in the simplest act of knowledge the unchanging principles 
of reality are all implicated. In the development of knowledge 
by sense-perception and self-consciousness, by scientific investi- 
gation, and by philosophical reflection, the system of real 
beings — their natures, relations, and laws of being — becomes 
the object of knowledge. 

The primary and indubitable reality, back of which or above 
which or underneath which it is impossible to go, is the fact of 
knowledge itself. This fact is not only an actuality that can 
neither be explained nor doubted, but it is itself the type, the 
source, the guarantee of all that is actual. That which is first 
of all, really and indubitably existent, is this fact of knowledge. 
It is here, that modern metaphysics plants itself, if it is to 
make a final and secure stand against the scepticism which 
would invade and reduce under the misrule of fancy or of 
despair the entire domain of reality. It is to this fact, with 
all which is implied in it, that the Cartesian maxim applies. 
If by cogito, ergo sum, or cogito as equal to cogitans sum, we 
mean only to assert the primary and indubitable reality of this 
fact, we cannot be gainsaid or disputed. Self-conscious cogni- 
tion is : it is an actual datum ; and the very attempt to be 
sceptical thereupon does but lead to confirmation by repetition, 
of this fact of reality. For even the dubito = dubitans sum = 
dubito, ergo sum. But the ergo is not expressive of a conclu- 
sion drawn in the region of mere thinking; it is rather 
expressive of that rational conviction respecting an envisaged 
reality which all knowledge involves. 

Objections will undoubtedly be brought against the posi- 
tion just taken, by some on the ground of its being too 



METAPHYSICS. 225 

narrow, and by others on the ground of its being too com- 
prehensive. Objectors on the former ground would maintain 
that mere consciousness and real existence, necessarily im- 
plicated, are the true correlates. We are therefore told that 
" consciousness and existence are mutually limited and limit- 
ing," and that non-objective existence and non-real con- 
sciousness are terms without meaning. " It is the lasting 
service," says Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, "of the post-Kantian 
philosophers, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, each in his degree, 
to have established the doctrine of the perfect coextensiveness 
and mutuality of existence and consciousness." 1 This same 
writer even goes so far as to declare : " The absolute, the infi- 
nite, the Ding-an-sich, like all other objects, can exist only in 
consciousness ; the only questions are, what is their nature and 
analysis, and what is their origin." This view appears to iden- 
tify, both positively and negatively, not only the knowledge of 
reality, but the really existent itself, with the sum-total of con- 
crete psychical states ; and this without distinction as to the 
nature of the states, or admission of the possibility that fund- 
amental beliefs of the mind can ever avail to give evidence of 
the existence of aught besides their own occurrence as states of 
consciousness of that peculiar kind which we call " belief." 

On the other hand stands that doctrine which depreciates all 
knowledge by the senses and immediate self-consciousness as 
incapable of defining what is real ; and thinks by processes of 
ratiocination, or by impacts of a faith-faculty superadded to 
knowledge, to attain reality, as it were, in a roundabout way. 
To such theories it is by " pure thinking," or by " intellectual 
intuition," or by " faith," which is the superior of knowledge, that 
the question must be answered : What is it really to be ? By 
such doctrine it is deemed possible gradually to break down or 
overleap at once the barriers erected by the fundamental forms 
of all knowledge of the concrete and real. " Things " and 
"souls" are then resolved into abstractions; and the problem 

1 Time and Space, p. 26. 
15 



226 METAPHYSICS. 

of knowing the actual content, however partially, of that most 
concrete, real, and " content-full " of all existences, the life of the 
rational and personal Being whom we call God, becomes a mat- 
ter of passing judgments of relation between concepts that have 
no correlates among objects known. 

In opposition to all views like the foregoing we desire to 
maintain the identity of knowledge and of being as known. It 
is not every state of consciousness that, as such, is identical with 
the really existent ; neither is the knowledge of this real con- 
fined to psychical states that have attained the heights where 
the thin air of " pure thinking," " intellectual intuition," or ra- 
tional " faith," prevails, or where the high-climbers alone can 
get breath and keep their feet. The state of consciousness, in 
order to be co-extensive with a reality, must be known as a 
state of some being, either immediately through self-conscious- 
ness by the being whose state it is, or through perception by 
some other being. If it be indirectly known by science, its data 
must be mentally represented as knowable in one of these ways. 
That is to say, it is in terms of knowledge, of the known and 
the knowable, and not in the general form of consciousness and 
state of consciousness, that reality is implicated. The meanest, 
most thoughtless being that knows, that is conscious of Self or 
perceives a Thing, is in that very knowledge certain of real ex- 
istence. But without such knowledge, or unsupported by such 
knowledge, pure thought and intellectual intuition and faith 
have nothing to do with reality. 

Against this truth the psychological fact does not militate 
that even we, self-conscious and rational as we esteem our- 
selves to be, often evince our real existence by states of con- 
sciousness that cannot be called states of knowledge. Let it 
be granted that one often wakes up, as it were, simultaneously 
to the knowledge of self and to the memory of having passed 
through a series of psychical states which, as remembered, seem 
to bear not a trace of having been, while occurring, actually re- 
ferred to any real subject, — not even to the self whose states 



METAPHYSICS. 227 

they really were. Some such psychical states are undoubtedly 
of a highly complex order ; as, for example, those passed 
through by one sunk in deep revery, or absorbed in listening 
to music, or in viewing a spectacle. They may even consist of 
highly complicated trains of ideation supported upon a basis of 
complex unuttered language ; such as are the trains of ideation 
through which the mathematician goes when intent upon solv- 
ing some problem. To psychological research must be left the 
question whether such states ever actually occur without im- 
plying a reference to the real subject whose states they are ; 
that is, whether as states they occur in mental form resem- 
bling that in which we recall them when we mentally repre- 
sent their occurrence by an act of memory so-called. But if 
they were not, in their occurrence, actual states of knowledge, 
then no real existence was implied in them. Yet even mentally 
to represent them, after their occurrence, as having occurred, it 
is necessary to endow them with the features common to all 
states of knowledge. This is the same thing as to make them 
knowable, and, as such, real by implication. 

In other words, all states of consciousness imply reality only 
in as much as, and in so far as, they are states of knowledge ; 
only as states of knowledge have they anything to yield in 
answer to the question : What is it really to be ? States of 
mind (occurrences referable to the psychical subject) and states 
of things (occurrences referable to the subject that is not 
me), not as such, but as known and knowable, involve real 
existence. 

Implicated, of necessity, in this primary reality of the fact 
of knowledge, metaphysical analysis discovers the four so-called 
categories of Substantiality, Quality, Causality, and Eelation. 
These four are implied as belonging to reality, — concretely given, 
and co-existent. No one of the four can be resolved into any 
of the others. Each of the four implies all of the others ; and 
each is to be explicated (not to say explained, since, strictly 
speaking, this is not possible) with constant reference to all 



228 METAPHYSICS. 

of the others. [Indeed, this dim light, or faint shadow, which 
the different categories throw over each other — serving, as it 
does, less to make any one of them stand out in clear and bold 
relief than to keep them all in a phantasmagorial shifting under 
the attempts of analysis to limit their shapes — is one of the 
most interesting and yet embarrassing of the results which 
attend the consideration of metaphysical problems.] 

Substantiality cannot be resolved into really existing quality ; 
but quality cannot be known as really existing without refer- 
ence to substantial, or real, subject of such quality. Quality is 
always of some subject ; and the latter, if known as real, may 
be called a " substance," to distinguish it from a merely gram- 
matical or logical subject. Causality, as a category, is not to 
be resolved into mere relation ; but as predicated of the subject 
in reference to the quality it appears under the terms, as it 
were, of a fundamental relation. On the other hand, relation, 
in order to have reality as distinguished from mere appearance 
of relation, implies causality as existent on the part of the sub- 
stantial subject with reference to its quality. To this subject 
all qualities may be said to be related under the category of 
causality. 

The conceptions to which these four terms correspond, and 
the propositions in which the descriptions of metaphysics ex- 
press the nature of the terms, are all derived by processes of 
reflection from the individual facts of knowledge. As actually 
experienced, they are concrete momenta implicated in all the 
facts of knowledge. Every fact, or actual occurrence, of knowl- 
edge has then a manifold and concrete content which involves 
these four categories. This manifoldness of the concrete con- 
tent of every actual state of knowledge may be described in 
terms somewhat like the following : Every fact of knowledge 
implies a subject knowing as determined by its relation to an 
object known more or less definitely as such and no other 
object. But in every act of knowledge through self-conscious- 
ness the subject knowing is regarded as having become the 



METAPHYSICS. 229 

object of knowledge to itself. The very essence of the knowl- 
edge called seZ/-consciousness consists in this, that the subject 
knowing as it is determined by relation to an object, and the ob- 
ject known, is one and the self-same being. Out of this fact of 
knowledge, which is called self-consciousness, we may (perhaps 
rightfully) refuse to derive any theory as to the real unity, or 
permanent identity in reality, of the mind. We may be unable 
psychologically to explain the fact of self-consciousness. In the 
interests of this inability we may try to adopt and defend an 
atomic view of the nature of all consciousness ; we may repre- 
sent the case as though the mind could never so far catch up 
with itself as not to be at least one step behind the act of 
self-realization in the unity of self-consciousness. But neither 
in these ways nor in any other way can we invalidate the 
primary fact of knowledge, with all the conviction of being 
really existent which it involves. Indeed, without invali- 
dating this primary fact, we may make a variety of sceptical 
admissions. 

We may doubt whether the being that now knows is the 
same being as that which knew a moment since ; I have only 
the authority, as we say, of memory for that. But that the 
being, which, as subject, knows in the self-conscious act, is 
really one and the same with the being known, as object in 
the selfsame act, — this is a known reality which it is impos- 
sible to doubt. Subject and state — the latter known as be- 
longing to the former — are, then, terms expressive of what 
is in reality involved in every fact of self-consciousness. It 
is from this ultimate psychical reality that metaphysics derives 
the categories of substantiality and quality. 

In every fact of knowledge there is also implicated an object 
known more or less definitely as this particular object, and no 
other. If the knowledge be by perception through the senses 
(by mental states that involve somewhat more than the hav- 
ing of localized sensation-complexes, states that have, as it 
were, matured into knowledge), then the object is known as a 



230 .. METAPHYSICS. 

"Thing" having determinate states, and as related to other 
things co-existing in time and space. If the knowledge be 
through self-consciousness, then the object is known as the 
" Self " in such or such determinate state, and related to co- 
existing realities. That is to say, the object of every act of 
knowledge is known as a subject of states, existing when 
known in some determinate one of these states. 

But in the case of those objects which are known as things, 
the relation of the object known as real to the subject really 
knowing is one of non-identity. No object is known as a 
" Thing " unless it is known as not-me. In the case of those 
objects which are known as self, the relation of subject and 
object is, as has already been said, one of identity in reality. 
In both classes of cases, however, the relation of subject to its 
own states is implied as belonging to the object of knowledge. 
The object of perception cannot be known as a " thing," as in- 
volving anything beyond the subjective occurrence of mere 
sensation-complexes, without mental recognition in it of that 
peculiar relation which exists between every real subject and 
its actually occurring states. Nor can the object of self-con- 
sciousness be known as "Self," that is, be an object of self- 
consciousness at all, except upon the same terms. For these 
reasons it is that all knowledge involves the mental affirmation 
-of— actually existing states as belonging to those real subjects 
which we call either things or minds. 

When we come to inquire into the peculiarity of that rela- 
tion which is known to exist (or, should any one wish to 
emphasize the conviction which belongs to all knowledge, he 
may say, believed to exist) between a real subject and its 
states, we find its very indescribable essence to be what meta- 
physics denominates a "real cause." All states are 0/ their 
subjects ; they are not self-produced. For the term " self" desig- 
nates the subject whose the states are, rather than the states, 
which are actual only as they are states of some really exist- 
ing subject. Hence it is from the ultimate psychical reality, 



METAPHYSICS. 231 

the fact of knowledge, as implicated in it, that metaphysics 
derives the category of causality. 

The foregoing analysis of the fact of knowledge need not be 
repeated in order to discover that the reality of relations, as 
known, is implied in this fact over and over again. Indeed, it 
is this which gives its truth to those definitions of knowledge 
which tell us, " To know is to relate;" or to those defiuitions 
of being which advocate the formula, " To be is to be related." 
The modern doctrine of the relativity of knowledge is, so far as 
it is true, well grounded in this ultimate truth of all experi- 
ence. The Logic of Hegel affirms it, even at its beginning, 
when it exclaims : Let Thought and Eeality in their Identity 
now be ! For its first product is a proposition positing under 
the relation of equality Pure Being and Nothing. That the 
primary fact of knowledge implicates the reality of the category 
of relation, if it implicate any reality whatever, there can be 
found no one to doubt. 

The detailed discussion of the so-called " categories " is the 
work of metaphysical system. The discussion must be critical 
and reflective, but must also keep itself constantly in touch 
with the concrete realities of experience. It must avoid the 
pretence of profundity which explains those forms and presup- 
positions of all knowledge that, of course, are the basis and 
authority of every attempt at explanation ; it must also shun 
that frivolous or naive self-confidence which is satisfied with 
insufficient analysis, or else with the refusal to analyze at all. 
Neither scepticism, nor positivism, nor faith (so-called intellec- 
tual or so-called religious), nor easy-going " common-sense," nor 
off-hand appeal to the opinions of boors and charlatans, will 
worthily fill the place in reason of a thorough and patiently 
elaborated but progressive metaphysical inquiry. Our brief 
sketch of the nature of Metaphysics as one branch of phi- 
losophy must content itself with the barest outline of 
the field to be thoroughly covered by every metaphysical 
system. 



232 METAPHYSICS. 

Substantiality is, then, the category which covers our knowl- 
edge, and its conviction, respecting a " real subject " of those 
states that are known to be actual states, of Things or Minds. 

This real subject is the so-called "substance" whose existence 
and nature have been the cause of endless metaphysical debate. 
Critical philosophy must first of all strip this category of those 
misleading figurative conceptions which have come to surround 
and even to penetrate it. By substance we cannot fitly mean 
to designate some undifferentiated material or spiritual " stuff " 
out of which (by the addition of " form " or the process of 
differentiation) the concrete realities of experience are produced. 
" Atoms," if known to be really existent at all, are (each one) 
concrete individual substances in possession, as it were, of a 
full complement of qualities. And by so-calle'd " mind-stuff " 
nothing that is known or knowable can be designated except 
the mental abstraction which the thinker chooses this uncouth 
term to represent. There is no known or conceivable substance 
(real subject of states) in general ; there really is only the 
known or knowable individual subjects of actual states. 

We may indeed speak intelligibly of a so-called " universal 
substance." But, if so, we must mean to designate by this term 
that concrete reality which may be, or must be, regarded as the 
subject of all states. It is scarcely necessary to say that the 
popular impression, which tends to picture some core of reality 
as contained in all things, or as underlying and supporting 
them all, results from the natural mythology of the knowing 
mind. It is the inevitable product of the attempt to represent 
in terms of sensation that which is known as indeed implicated 
in sense-perception, but is not to be given to thought in terms 
of sensation. Human knowledge is the knowledge of being 
that is both sensuous and metaphysical. The very word " sub- 
ject " is itself this embodied figure of speech. 

Nor is critical philosophy satisfied to substitute for the term 
" substance," as giving all it implies respecting reality, such 
phrases as that of John Stuart Mill, so celebrated in English 



METAPHYSICS. 233 

philosophy ; namely, " permanent possibility of sensation." 1 
This celebrated phrase, if by it we understand nothing more 
than the declaration that with every mental representation of a 
thing we may also experience the expectation of a possible 
repetition of a certain series or group of sensation-complexes, 
may be taken for what it is worth in the region of descriptive 
psychology. As a specimen of reflective analysis in meta- 
physics, the dictum can scarcely be called successful. For so 
far as it attempts to explicate the notion of substance at all, it 
only somewhat vaguely repeats this notion. That " substance " 
is indeed " the permanent," in contrast with changing states, is 
a statement sufficiently familiar to Metaphysics. That sub- 
stance is to be regarded as the potentiality of states, is a dec- 
laration involving not only the category of substantiality, but 
also that of causality. That it is the " permanent possibility 
of sensation," is a decided under-statement of the legitimate 
conclusions from all our experience ; for it limits the real 
being and causal action of the subject of the states to the 
potential production of a limited kind of changes in us (and 
these of the purely subjective order called " sensation" ). But 
the question recurs : What is permanent and potential of future 
states ? Certainly not the sensations themselves, and not the 
expectations of a possible recurrence ; for both of these are 
fleeting, and impotent to produce, in reality, any changes at all. 
It is to this " subject " of the states that we attribute the per- 
manence, and also the potentiality, of all present and future 
states. 

Further and still negatively, we never envisage or otherwise 
know, in its naked simplicity as it were, this " permanent 
potentiality," this subject of the states, the so-called substance, 
whether physical or psychical. It can only be said to be known 
as necessarily implicated to reason, present and actually exis- 
tent in every object known. It is envisaged only as an object 
known to be in some particular state. Neither can it be said 
1 An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, chap. xi. 



234 .. METAPHYSICS. 

to be known as the result of reasoning alone. It is true that 
thought is implied in all knowledge of the really existent ; and 
that all such knowledge comes to the individual as the result 
of a development. Knowledge of the really existent follows 
upon processes of psychical analysis and synthesis which we 
may feel obliged to describe as involving instinctive inference. 
But it is also true that knowledge is the basis and guarantee of 
all that we more properly call " thought," so far as it implicates 
reality. No knowledge of the really existent is possible that 
is not rooted in the immediate cognitions and convictions of 
self-consciousness and sense-perception. 

On the other hand, it would seem that for this primary 
knowledge, in both of its two forms, the category of substance 
is expressive only of a vague (and, we may even say, " blind ") 
yet inevitable belief that there is the really existent. This 
belief, as yet undefined and inexplicable as to its origin and 
significance, enters into all perception and into all self- 
consciousness. It so characterizes these processes that they 
are processes of knowledge, and that it is impossible to con- 
sider them as mere successive acts of mental representation. 
It clings to all the further elaboration of knowledge by science 
and philosophy. It binds the workman in these fields to the 
persuasion that the object of his labors is not mere seeming 
(Schein). It reappears under a variety of terms, from the 
Ding-an-sich of Kant — which, even if we regard it as the re- 
sult of merely negative thinking, is no less prized and cherished 
in positive conviction — to Mill's " permanent possibility " of 
sensation. It may seem an exceedingly slender thread, so far 
as content goes, but it appears strong and important enough 
when we make it serve to connect us with the world of reality, 
— with those subjects of states which we called " Things," and 
" Souls," and " God." 

But why not, it may be asked, consign this category of sub- 
stantiality, once and forever, to its appropriate place in the 
" death-kingdom " of abstract and negative thoughts ? To this 



METAPHYSICS. 235 

question we may reply, first, we could not if we would. It 
refuses to be Danished ; it refuses to die. Metaphysics must at 
least recognize it as a persistent and invincible, if blind, belief ; 
and also as a belief which so enters into all knowledge as to 
make knowledge, in distinction from mere mental representation, 
a possible thing. But we may reply, second : We would not if 
we could. For further elaboration of the category of substan- 
tiality, as conjoined with the other categories, and so making 
possible and valid the scientific and philosophical extensions of 
knowledge, shows it to have an incomparable significance and 
value. Even in general metaphysics we shall be obliged again 
to refer to what, of an ideal character, is implied in this 
category. 

Quality (or attribute) is a term which we apply to a gen- 
eralization from repeatedly recurring similar states of a subject 
conceived of as the same. The truth implicated in the primary 
fact of knowledge is this, that the act of knowing and the 
object known are always mutually defined in the one fact of 
knowledge.- The act of knowing is a knowing of this rather 
than some other object ; the object known — to declare the same 
truth from another point of view — is known as this rather 
than some other object. The psychological account of the 
genesis and nature of knowledge must, at this point, again call 
attention to the truth that all knowing involves memory and 
the so-called relating faculty. Metaphysics marks the funda- 
mental and essential form of knowledge as implicating being, 
by its doctrine of the category of quality. 

In reality, however, there are no qualities or attributes ; in 
reality there are only the present concrete and definite states of 
the subjects called Things or Minds. In reality also — as will be 
further explained later — by the " states " we can understand 
only the concrete and definite " modes of the behavior " (to em- 
ploy a term of Lotze's, which, though figurative, as all terms for 
the categories must be, is nevertheless expressive of the truth) 
of the real subjects themselves. The repeated recurrence of 



236 METAPHYSICS. 

similar modes of behavior progressively defines to knowledge 
what is the object known. Quality is the " what-sort-ness " of 
the object as known. But by that instinctive metaphysics 
which enters into all knowledge, the recurring modes of the 
behavior of the object are ascribed to the potential nature of 
the object regarded as a "Thing." The real subject of the 
states is not simply posited with an indefinite faith in its bare 
existence, but as definitively known by its own modes of be- 
havior. It is known as really having qualities or attributes 
which define it as related to other more or less similarly con- 
stituted things. Obviously, in this metaphysical realization of 
states and subjects of states, the categories of causality and 
relation are again involved. 

Causality is the category under which metaphysics brings all 
application of the principle of sufficient reason to the world of 
reality. We have already seen that this principle, as neces- 
sarily employed in the elaboration of knowledge by processes 
of conscious reasoning, guarantees only the consistency of the 
system of mental representations. What we call "pure sci- 
ence," and indeed all science regarded as cut loose from either 
naive or intelligent metaphysics, goes no farther than this. 
What we call pure science is then only a systematic and logical 
arrangement of abstract conceptions ; the purer it becomes, 
the farther does it remove from reality, which is always con- 
cretely manifold, beyond the power of all the combined sciences 
adequately to describe it. Furthermore, the claims of the purest 
science to be science at all, depend upon its valid application of 
this principle of causality, as a principle of thinking, to the 
ultimate facts of knowledge. It is this which distinguishes 
science from consistent and logical dream-life, if such there be. 
Therefore, when we examine the grounds on which all science 
reposes its claim to extend the realm of knowledge, we find this 
category involved in them. 

All the talk of science touching " forces " (or modes and 
degrees of energy), "causes," "action," "influence," "laws," etc., 



METAPHYSICS. 237 

is symbolical. The symbols do not clearly express the true find- 
ings of the reflective analysis of facts of knowledge. It belongs 
to that branch of philosophical discipline which we call the 
Philosophy of Nature, more specifically to point this out. 
There, too, if anywhere, must we expect to find stated the true 
significance of these terms. None of them, however, can claim 
to give the essential meaning of the primary fact of knowledge. 
In this fact the reality of causality is found implicated as a 
persuasion that the states of the self-knowing subject and of the 
object known — that all states, indeed — have their origin in 
the reality of the subject of the states. States can never be 
known or conceived of as passing over from one subject to 
another. Neither is any real transaction defined or expressed 
by declarations concerning the " influence " of one thing upon 
another, or of one mind upon another, — beyond the further 
limitation of that causal relation in which every real subject 
stands to its own states. To be sure, we are obliged here to 
introduce a possibly indefinite expansion of our application of 
the category of causality in our knowledge of reality. 

Suppose (as is indeed true, and were it not true, experience 
and especially science would be impossible) that we observe 
everywhere evidences that certain changes of states of different 
so-called real beings (e. g., X and Y) occur together in a fixed 
order. Accordingly, we say that the being X depends, for 
its passing through the succession of its states a, b, c, d, e, 
etc., upon the being Y passing through the states a, /3, y, B, e, 
etc. ; or the latter is the cause of the former. By " cause," in 
this use of the word, we mean to state something more than 
the observed general fact that the changes occur in a fixed 
order ; we mean to state that the changes in one being deter- 
mine the changes in another being. But here again that which 
determines — the ground of the related changes — is not to be 
found in the changes themselves, nor in aught of the nature of 
" influence " or " force " so called, that passes between them. In 
reality there is the fact of the changes of one being, and the 



238 METAPHYSICS. 

fact of the changes of the other being ; in each case the word 
" causality," as representative of a real relation, applies primarily 
to the subject of the changes and its changing states. 

When then we endeavor to apply the conception of causality 
in reality to an entire system of changes, regarded as recipro- 
cally determining, a wonderful kind of postulate with reference 
to the real nature of the subject of these changes seems to 
become necessary. It seems to become necessary to regard 
them all as changes of one real subject, whose states they 
are. Only in this way does it appear possible to realize, 
as it were, the mystery of the general fact of all knowl- 
edge ; of the fact, namely, that the changes of states of one 
thing or mind determine the changes of states of another 
thing or mind. To the examination and criticism of such 
an apparently justifiable postulate as this a large measure 
of metaphysical philosophy, may fitly be devoted. For the 
postulate has an important bearing on other of the categories 
customarily named. It is also seen on further consideration 
to lie at the base of that " Unity of Nature " of which we hear 
so much (that is, if this unity is a unity that has reality and 
is more than a transitory unifying actus of the imagination of 
the individual mind) ; and it certainly forms the very core 
of the supreme Unity of Reality which the philosophy of re- 
ligion seeks to explicate. We shall therefore have further 
occasion to refer to this category of causality. 

Relation is a term which covers, in the most absolutely uni- 
versal manner, all knowledge of reality. We may indeed find 
fault with Lotze for insisting that " to be " = " to stand in 
relations." For if by " being " we mean " being in reality," 
then it is indeed true that all real beings are actually related ; 
but it is not a true, because an insufficient, description of the 
content of our notion of real being, to say that it is equivalent 
to the one category of relation. But if by " being " we do not 
mean to designate reality, then we may as well say with Hegel 
that it equals " Nothing," as to say with Lotze that it equals 



METAPHYSICS. 239 

" to stand in relations." With Lotze, however, as against Hegel 
and Herbart alike, we must insist upon the truth, that the 
content of real being is not = " to be unrelated " (whether 
called " pure being " or " simple position ") ; but on the con- 
trary, unrelated real being is a contradiction in terms. 

As a category, relation can neither be defined nor simplified 
by reduction to more primary terms. The analysis of the most 
primary fact of knowledge finds the category always implied as 
belonging to the really existent. In knowledge itself, regarded 
as a psychical act or process, there is involved the relation of 
subject and object. In the subject of knowledge and its chan- 
ging states, there is involved that peculiar relation which we 
have called real cause, or ground. But, on the other hand, 
causality cannot be reduced to mere relation. Between the 
states there are always implied relations of similarity or dis- 
similarity, of sequence, etc. So true is it that "to know is 
to relate ; " and that the very essential content of that being, 
which all that is really existent has, involves the actuality of 
relations. 

Other more complicated and yet irreducible forms of knowl- 
edge, that are also forms of being as given in each most primary 
fact of knowledge, are discovered by the analysis which meta- 
physics undertakes. Two of these are the categories of Change 
and Number. Every being that we know, or conceive of, as 
really existent is a " substance," a ground of states, in relation to 
other reality. This implies that every being is known as the real 
subject of actual change, and as a unity of discrete manifoldness ; 
that is, as having number. Substantiality, quality, causality, 
relation, are categories that imply, but are not, the categories of 
change and number. As the subject of its own states, and as 
related to other subjects of states, every real existence is capa- 
ble of change ; so, and only so, is every real existence a unity 
implying manifoldness, a being falling under the category of 
number. 

Change belongs to reality ; this declaration follows from an 



240 METAPHYSICS. 

analysis of the primary fact of knowledge. In so far as it is 
possible to regard those objects of perception which we call 
" Things " as without extra-mental being, and thus as owing 
the reality they have to the fact that our expectation of the 
" permanent possibility of sensation " accompanies and fuses with 
the actual processes of sensation, it is possible also to regard 
all changes called " physical phenomena " as not extra-mental, 
as unreal. It is also possible to hold that all changes in ex- 
ternal nature so-called are but the expressions in us of the action 
of beings who are not themselves the subjects of like change. 
It is even possible to resolve the entire ground in reality of the 
apparent changes of external nature into the changes of posi- 
tion in space of physical beings whose interior states remain 
unchanged. Something like this modern physics attempts when 
it tries to account for all physical phenomena, as due to the 
motions of atoms that have unchanging natures and undergo 
no changes of interior states. But all such theories at most, 
as says Lotze, 1 " can only suffice to eliminate from external 
nature any change in reality itself, and to reduce it to mere 
variation in relations (to us as percipient minds) ; no less, 
on the contrary, but the more inevitably, must an actual in- 
terior changeableness find a place for itself in that real being 
for which, as for the perceiving subject, the above-mentioned 
appearance of an objective change is assumed to originate." 

We may fitly go much beyond the theories just mentioned, 
however, in claiming an indubitable knowledge of the reality 
of change. This category is known to apply to the entire world 
of things. The truth of the statement is implied in the fact of 
the knowledge of things. For to be a " Thing " is to be the 
subject, not of one state, but of various states ; that is, to be 
the subject of change. In so far, then, as perception is the 
knowledge of things, it is the knowledge of a substance chan- 
ging its states. This confidence, which belongs to the earlier 
condition of the ordinary knowledge of nature, attends the whole 

1 Grundziige der Metaphysic, § 32. 



METAPHYSICS. 241 

theory of modern physics as to the constitution of the world 
of things. Physics, to be sure, affirms that the real subjects 
of all the changes in this world of things are the so-called 
" atoms." But the atoms themselves are said to have un- 
changeable natures, because they are found unchangeably (that 
is uniformly, so far as experience reaches) to behave, under 
similar circumstances, in similar ways. The one kind of change 
in these elements of material reality which physical theory 
recognizes is motion. To unfold the content of this concep- 
tion, in its application to reality, belongs to the philosophy 
of nature. 

Yet again, the validity of that view of nature to which all 
the scientific knowledge of the modern age stands most com- 
pletely pledged, and upon which it has (however rashly) risked 
its claim to confidence with the multitudes for a century to 
come, depends upon the reality of change. We refer of course 
to the theory of evolution. What a vast amount of metaphys- 
ics — much of it crude and over-confident enough surely — is 
involved in this scientific theory ! As a scientific theory, phi- 
losophy cannot assume the place of a judge over its claims. As 
involving a philosophy of nature, however, the theory must 
enter the lists with other contestants for the place of suprem- 
acy, asking and giving no favors, but relying upon the careful 
application of philosophical method to whatever of well-founded 
scientific generalizations it can produce. But a metaphysics of 
evolution is impossible without admitting the reality of change 
in external nature. Indeed, the theory of evolution is nothing, 
if not a descriptive history of change. Is this history simply 
a history of the growth of human knowledge; or is it a his- 
tory of an evolution of nature, — of the really existent object 
of knowledge ? If the principle of " Becoming " had, since the 
days of Heraclitus, and until lately, fallen at all from its su- 
preme position among the eternal ideas, it has surely been 
reinstated by the modern theory of evolution. 

Modern psychology, making use of experiment and the genetic 

16 



242 METAPHYSICS. 

method of study, looks upon each so-called state of conscious- 
ness, as well as upon the entire history of every soul, in the 
light of development. A state that is statical, merely state, 
does not exist. Psychical reality would seem to be conceived 
of as existing in a rigid form, if we judge the case by much of 
the language which lingers in works on logic and psychology. 
But in reality no " rigid " state of consciousness actually exists, 
or can exist, — not even in the minds of the writers of the 
works who discourse upon it. Neither is the conscious life of 
mind to be symbolized as a constantly flowing stream, so thin 
as to admit of not more than a drop or two of water side by 
side within its banks. The rather is it like a kaleidoscope 
kept turning, now more slowly, and now more swiftly, some- 
times with a steady, and sometimes with an unsteady hand ; 
sometimes, too, the field is in obscurity amounting to quite 
total darkness, and sometimes in wonderfully brilliant light. 
But however we account for the varying rate or scope of con- 
sciousness, and however we figuratively represent its facts, 
the one fact of knowledge at all involves the reality of change. 
To say " I think " is equivalent to saying that the movement, 
which belongs to all psychical life, is realizing itself. Not to 
change in reality is not to think at all. The mental picture of 
an unchanging being, could we frame such a picture, would be 
the equivalent of no real being; it would not even be equal 
to the seeming to be (Schein) ; it would be equal only to 
nothing, to no being at all (Nichts). 

From the days of the Eleatics to those of Hegel's subtle 
dialectic, plentiful oppositions, contradictions, and dilemmas 
have been discovered by metaphysics in the conception of 
reality as the subject of change. But the oppositions, contra- 
dictions, or dilemmas are specious rather than real; and the 
solution of them belongs to logic rather than to metaphysics. 
They consist in thinking obscurely ; they do not belong to 
the knowledge of reality. The reasons for their origin and 
persistence are chiefly twofold, — the same reasons which have 



METAPHYSICS. 243 

given origin and persistence to the old-time puzzles of Achilles 
and the tortoise, of the arrow always flying and yet at each 
moment at rest, and to similar logical curiosities. One of these 
reasons is found in the attempt to bring the category of sub- 
stantiality under the terms of sensuous imagination, or of — 
what Hegel called — "figurate conception." The other is the 
paralogism so frequent in " pure " science, which consists in 
forming by generalizations from experience a highly abstract 
conception, elaborating it by processes of thinking, and then 
covertly introducing into its alleged application the very factors 
drawn from reality, which the process of abstraction had agreed 
to disregard. Instead then of dwelling upon the cheap logical 
puzzles connected with the inquiry, for example, how real and 
pure being can remain self-identical and yet pass over into 
other being, etc., metaphysics notes the factor (" moment ") 
of change as essentially belonging to all real being. Every 
thing and every mind which answers the question, What is it 
really to be? does so in the actuality of a living and inter- 
related movement, does so not as statical and pure being, or 
as being with unchanging relations and states, but as a suc- 
cession of changes realized. 

A real unity of the actually manifold is also implied in every 
primary fact of knowledge. Hence the so-called category of 
Number, as implying oneness and manifoldness belonging ac- 
tually to all that really exists. This primary fact of knowl- 
edge, in its subjective aspect, implies a dividing and a unifying 
actus as entering essentially into every act of knowing. It is 
customary to point out that knowledge implies analysis and 
synthesis. Rightly understood, the statement is true. But 
such analysis and synthesis as belong essentially to all know- 
ing cannot be identified with those conscious and voluntary 
processes which we call by these terms. A description of 
the psychical processes themselves serves to show how it is 
that we number things and build up abstract systems of knowl- 
edge in the discussion of that conception of " discrete manifold- 



244 METAPHYSICS. 

ness " with which mathematics deals. Such an elaboration of 
knowledge is made possible, however, only by the nature of the 
primary fact of knowledge. In this fact the reality of change 
is shown to belong to the very life, so to speak, of the subject 
of change. It implies the act of separating and uniting as an 
integral factor in that process of self-realization which the act 
of knowledge is. 

In its objective aspect, as the being known, the fact of 
knowledge involves the same category. Every object of knowl- 
edge is necessarily one and yet manifold, — a being exhibiting its 
qualities, as it were, in changing relations to other beings and 
in a succession of changing states. As substantial and real 
cause, every being is necessarily regarded as a unity ; as having 
changing states and entering into changed relations, it is neces- 
sarily regarded as manifold. It is, then, a unity of the mani- 
fold. If not the former, then it cannot be regarded as real ; 
and if not the latter, then it cannot be regarded as this being 
rather than some other being, and is reduced to the condition of 
an abstract being, of a " pure " being = nothing. 

The system of thinking ascribed to Pythagoras, which found 
in number the one formal principle of all that really is, seems 
fanciful enough to modern thought. But like the Eleatic phi- 
losophy, and the philosophy of Heraclitus, it seized upon one of 
the categories and, misunderstanding its nature, elevated it to 
the place of supreme and absolute sovereignty. That its prin- 
ciple was a principle indeed, and so entitled to a place in the 
system of metaphysics, because implicated in all knowledge of 
reality, does not admit of doubt. All that is known as real, 
whether of " Things " or of " Minds," whether in the intuition 
of perception and self-consciousness, or by the elaborations of 
science, is both one and manifold. There is no unity in 
reality, no one real being, that is not also manifold in respect 
of its changing relations and states. There is no actual mani- 
foldness of relations and states that does not implicate a unity 
of some real being; there is no multiplicity of real beings 



METAPHYSICS. 245 

that does not involve a unity in reality of the world of such 
beings. 

In the discussion of the two foregoing categories, it is impos- 
sible to avoid the confession that the vague character of the 
category of substantiality exercises upon us a constant influence. 
Change is real ; and the real is always manifold, and yet one. 
But change without limit is never known as real ; indeed the 
very attempt to conceive of absolutely limitless change in that 
which is really existent ends in the irrational and the absurd. 
Neither can the unlimitedly manifold realize itself as one. 

What, then, is it that limits change, — what but the subject of 
the changes ? What is it that, as it were, connects into a unity 
the otherwise wholly discrete manifold, but the one " Ground " 
of the many connected elements ? We may call this cause of 
the limitation by the terms " nature," or " character," or " es- 
sence," or by some other similar term. We may speak of the 
nature of each particular thing or species of things ; of the 
nature even of the atoms, — those hypothetical elements of ma- 
terial reality out of which scientific thinking aims to build up 
the unities that particular things are, as well as the Unity of 
the universe of things. We may also ascribe a nature or char- 
acter to souls, whether of men or of the lower animals ; we may 
even carry this important fiction over into the phenomena of 
the life of plants. But by all these terms we simply introduce, 
in disguised form, an amplification of essentially the same fac- 
tor of all knowledge to which the name of " substance " has 
been given. " Nature " and " character," — this signifies the 
sum-total of the unchanging norms or modes of the behavior 
of the subject of the changing relations and states. 

It may be, however, that we try, in the interests of scientific 
clearness and accuracy, to describe our knowledge of reality 
by a more popular and attractive phrase. It is the fashion in 
these days to talk much of "law," or of "uniformity of nature," 
as a general expression for the presence everywhere of the so- 
called " reign of law." This conception is thus made a cate- 



246 METAPHYSICS. 

gory ; nay, it is hypostasized and even deified. Law is every- 
where ; law reigns, controls, compels, forbids, produces ; it sits 
" over " or " between " or " underneath " the real beings, and 
compels them unceasingly to feel and to acknowledge its po- 
tent sway. But nothing exactly corresponding to this word 
" law " belongs to the realm of real existences as a something 
related to them, with an existence of its own. We have here 
to deal with a convenient figure of speech somewhat similar to 
that which we employ in speaking of qualities or attributes as 
though they were actual existences attached to every so-called 
" Thing." In its subjective aspect, " law " is the formula pre- 
scribed to the movement of the life of mind. The prescription 
is as follows : You may, or you must, think the changes of X 
and the changes of Y as reciprocally dependent in the following 
more or less definite way. In its subjective aspect, then, every 
law is realized only as the actual movement of a knowing mind. 
What then becomes of the " laws of nature " and of that general 
deference to a fixed order, — amounting, in the estimate of mod- 
ern physical science, to an unswerving obedience, — which is 
called the " uniformity of nature " ? Have we valid reasons 
for affirming that the conformity to law actually belongs to 
the external object of knowledge ? In what terms, further- 
more, are we to describe that content of the really Existent 
which fixes limits to the changes of every so-called " Thing," 
as well as of the world of physical reality at large? 

This foregoing problem may be proposed in a somewhat dif- 
ferent way. Anything, — called, for example, X, — in order 
really to be a " Thing " at all, must be the subject of only 
such changes of states and relations as belong under a series 
X a , X b , X c , etc. The thing called Y, in order also really to be, 
must be the subject of another series, Y a , Y b , Y c , etc. More- 
over, all things, taken together in their ceaselessly changing 
states and relations to each other, must, as subjects of these 
states and relations, observe some principles of reciprocal 
limitation, in order that the world as an orderly and beautiful 



METAPHYSICS. 247 

totality may really exist. To say this is to claim that the 
causes of the limitations of the changes are to be found in the 
subjects of the particular series of changes; and, since the 
series unite in higher series, the claim extends itself so as to 
take in a total unity, in that one subject which we call " Na- 
ture " or " the World." But how can these particular subjects 
of change maintain their relative unity, and how can the one 
subject of all the changes maintain its absolute unity, except 
by conformity to law ? 

It must be admitted that the analysis of general metaphysics 
leaves much which is obscure clinging to this conception of a 
real subject of the changing states. How can each particular 
subject be self-limiting as respects its own changes, and yet 
related to other real subjects, in the unity of one " Nature " ? 
But it must also be admitted, it seems to us, that the analysis 
discloses the presence of another category which is needed in 
order to give the complete essence, so to speak, of that conception 
of substantiality to which we found a sort of blind but inevita- 
ble attachment in every fact of knowledge. We inquire, then, 
after a suitable expression for this additional factor discovered 
by the analysis. We will attempt such an expression by lay- 
ing down the following proposition : Every real existence is 
known as a "realized idea." But no one using such a phrase 
as this could regard it as marking the stage of clearest and 
most nearly ultimate analysis of that strange presupposition 
respecting the real subject of changing states and relations 
which the fact of knowledge undoubtedly implies. Let us 
then confess it : the phrase is figurative. But what of concep- 
tion or belief that is not merely " figurate " does this phrase 
express ? In order really to be, every subject of states must 
be self-limiting of its own states. This self-limitation does 
not have respect merely to the number of the states actual or 
possible. The manifold states must also be so realized as 
accords with the unity of an idea. What is true of every 



248 METAPHYSICS. 

grouping or series of states is true of all the more manifold 
groups and series of the relations existing in the reality of one 
World. The world is known to be real only as the universal 
subject of all the states and relations is known under similar 
terms, — the terms, namely, which correspond to the phrase, a 
"realized Idea." To be known as real is to be known as the 
ground of the occurrence of the states and relations, in con- 
formity to an idea. 

In this meaning of the words, therefore, metaphysical analy- 
sis discloses the category of " Finality " (or end) as necessarily 
involved in the answer to the question : What is it really to 
be? The judgment which states the belief corresponding to 
this category is not : Every event must have a final purpose ; 
or, everything must be constructed according to some (ex- 
traneous) idea ; or, the whole world depends on final purpose, 
or shows evidence of its existence everywhere. These proposi- 
tions may be true, but the proof of them is not categorical ; it 
is not given or implicated in the fact of knowledge as determin- 
ing the content of the object really known. Neither can it be 
claimed that every primary fact of knowledge seems to involve 
the cognition and belief corresponding to the term "finality." 
The knowledge which involves this category seems, in some 
sort, to imply a larger growth of experience and a deepening 
of the reflective insight of the mind. But certainly our larger 
knowledge of a World of Things — unities of the manifold 
standing in a regular way related to other like unities — 
implies finality. And this is true whether the so-called world 
be that of the most primitive savage or that of the most scien- 
tific and philosophical minds. Knowledge of the real is inter- 
pretation ; and interpretation of the real implies the actuali- 
zation of the ideal. But the further unfolding of this truth 
belongs to subsequent departments of philosophy. 

Two other categories, or norms of knowledge determinative 
of the content of what is really existent, remain to be men- 



METAPHYSICS. 249 

tioned. They are Time and Space. It is customary to dis- 
tinguish these from categories like the foregoing by calling 
them " formal," or by introducing the discussion of them (so 
Lotze) in the cosmological rather than the ontological division 
of metaphysics. The distinction thus emphasized undoubtedly 
exists. It is not, however, in our judgment a sufficient reason 
for following the common custom. To be a subject of changing 
states and changing relations, whose manifoldness is realized in 
the unity of an idea, — this it is to be, as all real existences are. 
But to be " time," or to be " space ; " or even to be the subject of 
time or space, — such phrases as these do not represent fitly 
what is implied in our knowledge of that which we call real. 

Our experience follows norms which compel us to drop the 
preposition " of " and make use of the preposition " in," when 
speaking of the relation of real existences to the conceptions of 
time and space. Those real subjects which we call things are 
said to be known as existing in space ; those which we call 
minds, as well as those which we call things, are said to be 
known as existing in time. It would seem then that the 
reality of these two categories, and the nature of the relation 
in which all real existences stand to them, as well as the 
manner in which the fact of knowledge may be said to im- 
plicate them, are of a somewhat special kind. 

Metaphysics does not need to show that Space is no extra- 
mental existence, infinitely spread out as a medium in which 
ready-made particular existences called things can be con- 
veniently set. The sciences of psychology and of physics have 
now effectually disposed of theories built upon any remnant 
of conceptions so crude as these terms imply. The elabora- 
tion of knowledge by modern physical science has (it claims) 
shown that the real correlate of that which is perceived as 
statical, extended, and continuous, is an indefinite manifold- 
ness of discrete and moving beings, that are not only imper- 
ceptible, but are also unrepresentable in terms of the sensuous 



250 - METAPHYSICS. 

imagination. When then we inquire, How would atoms look 
or feel as extended in space? we appear to be asking: How 
would that look or feel which, ex hypothesi, can never be seen 
or felt ; or how would that seem as extended to sight and 
touch to which these senses have no conceivable applicability 
whatever? On the other hand, the modern psychology, es- 
pecially by following the methods of experimental analysis 
and speculative construction, has led to similar conclusions. 
It has rejected the old-time distinction of the attributes of 
matter into primary and secondary, as not implying a funda- 
mental difference in genesis and validity ; and it has presented 
something like an uninterrupted history of the conditions on 
which, and the processes by which, the perception of extended 
things is gained. Nay, more ; it has tried, with some success, 
to sketch the development of the conceptions of the spatial 
attributes and relations of things. Psychology cannot, indeed, 
be said to have explained the genesis of the idea of space. In 
all its attempts at explanation it comes upon the necessity 
of admitting either that the space-idea as a formative principle 
is present and unaccounted for ; or else, that it is necessary at 
some particular point in the evolution of sense-perception, to 
introduce it, without being able to say why it should be in- 
troduced at just that point, rather than some other, or indeed 
why it should be introduced at all. 

For these reasons the metaphysical analysis of the content of 
the object known as real leads to the recognition of space as a 
formative principle of the perceiving mind. Space is the uni- 
versal and necessary mode of the perception of things by the 
senses. The so-called objects of sense are not " Things " until, 
or unless, they are perceived in this form. But necessary forms 
of perception by the senses are also necessary forms of repre- 
sentation in all sensuous imagination, and in all " figurate " con- 
ception. We say, then : all things are necessarily in space. 
This category then gives the content of the real, because it 



METAPHYSICS. 251 

is the universal and necessary mode of the actual process of 
the mind in knowing all physical beings by the senses. 

But is this all that is signified by so much as there is of 
categorical character and significance belonging to space ? The 
cognitions and beliefs implied in knowledge seem to compel us 
to a negative answer. The subject of those changing states 
and relations which we know as " not-ourselves " maintains 
itself as, in some way, the extra-mental ground for the space- 
principle of the perceiving mind. We find ourselves compelled 
to believe and say, — not simply all things are perceived, or are 
mentally representable, only as in space, but all things are in 
space. And these two declarations can never be made the 
exact equivalents of each other. 

So often, therefore, as the conclusion of idealism affirms, on 
what appear the best of grounds, the subjectivity of space, so 
often does the blind instinctive realism which lurks in every 
fact of knowledge through the senses, affirm some sort of extra- 
mental reality for space. What mode of their real being " in 
space," considered as distinct from being mentally represented, 
the subjects of physical changes and relations can possibly 
have, this realism cannot say. So often as it proposes a definite 
description, the idealistic theory convicts it of the folly of 
trying to tell us how things would look and feel, if nobody 
saw or felt them ; how they would appear extended, in case 
they appeared to nobody at all. The theory of the subjec- 
tivity of space is, therefore, always right in denying all such 
reality to the so-called " intuitions " of spatial properties and 
relations as implies that these intuitions are copies of somewhat 
existing, that is not-mental, and yet really exists, as it is copied 
off by the mental process itself. On the other hand, the ap- 
parent demonstration that space is merely mental, that it has 
no ground in what is other than the mind " intuiting " it, can 
never satisfy our minds. If any answer to the inquiry, What 
that is not grounded in the perceiving mind is the reality of 



252 • METAPHYSICS. 

space ? is ever to be discovered, it must come through the ex- 
tension of knowledge by science and philosophy. If we know, 
even partially, what the reality called " matter " is, we may dis- 
cover in it the answer, at least in part, to our inquiry after the 
nature of the reality we assign to space. If we knew fully 
what matter is, we should have the complete answer to this 
inquiry. 

The general metaphysical discussion of the category Time 
corresponds to that of space. The similarity is such, however, 
as to permit of several important differences. The likenesses 
and unlikenesses of the two categories in their relations to 
reality are most easily brought to view in a symbolical way. 
But to psychology does it chiefly belong to discuss the " line of 
time " and the " line of space." The important metaphysical 
difference between the two conceptions — time and space — is 
that which leads us to apply the former both to things and 
to minds ; while it requires various modifications of our mean- 
ings if we attempt to apply the latter to minds at all. Con- 
nected with this important difference is another. It may be 
stated in the form of a question : Do we not so know things 
in perception, and especially the mind by self-consciousness, 
as to affirm that they and it must be in time, in order really 
to be at all ? 

It is plain also that the relation of time to the other cate- 
gories differs, in an important way, from that of space. We 
find nothing in our knowledge as implying substantiality, 
quality, causality, relation, or change and number, that makes 
these conceptions dependent, as it were, for their realization on 
the extra-mental reality of space. In other words, reflective 
analysis appears to give us no ground for affirming that space 
is necessary to the reality of the subject of changes and rela- 
tions, or to the actuality of the changes and relations. But the 
case is not the same with the category of time. The subject to 
be the real ground of its states must be conceived of as perma- 



METAPHYSICS. 253 

nent in time. The reality of change, in states and relations, re- 
quires the reality of time. The primary fact of knowledge, then, 
whether as perception or as self-consciousness, and all the elab- 
oration of knowledge by science and philosophy, implicates the 
reality of time. What further can be meant by such reality, 
and how it is implied by the sciences of nature and of mind, 
it belongs to the two subdivisions of general metaphysics to 
discuss. 



CHAPTER X. 

PHILOSOPHY OF NATUKE AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 

FOE purposes of further and more detailed investigation 
the general inquiry, What is the content of that object 
which is known really to be ? divides itself into two branches. 
One of these relates to the system of things which we call 
" Nature," in the narrower sense of the word ; the other relates 
to those objects which we call " souls " or " minds." This two- 
fold division of the problems of being arises, of necessity, in the 
very development of knowledge itself ; the experience on which 
it is based can scarcely be said to be divided by scientific re- 
search or by philosophical reflection. It is rather appropriate 
to employ the phrase just given ; and to say, the sum-total of 
knowledge "divides itself," as a primary condition of knowl- 
edge, in this twofold manner. 

As to the possibility of uniting in one system the two halves 
of reality known, whether by some higher intellectual intuition, 
or in the final outcome of that synthesis which philosophy aims 
to accomplish, this is not the place to remark at length. It 
has already been assumed that the reality of the knowing sub- 
ject as object to itself, and the reality of the object known by 
the subject as not-itself, are both implicated in the fact of 
knowledge. This fact then is itself a demonstration of the pos- 
sibility, — nay, of the actuality, — of some sort of unity between 
the two. The process of knowledge is such a unifying actus. 
At the same time the duality of the two kinds of objects, and 
the incomparability of their qualities and changes of states, is 
also part of the content of knowledge. 



PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE AND MIND. 255 

Indeed, that things and minds are not the same realities is a 
truth which enters into our ordinary, and even into our scien- 
tific convictions, far more deeply and comprehensively than 
any conviction of either a more primary or a higher unity. 
Developed intelligence does not confuse things with ourselves, 
— not even when we have as yet no conception of the self 
as separable from the sentient organism. Even the errors 
of localization and projection with which experimental psycho- 
logy is familiar depend, for their existence as errors simply, 
upon the " diremption " of our experience. To every self-con- 
scious mind all else is known as a " Thing," set over against — 
as we are wont to say — the existence of the " Self." Physical 
science is distinguished from psychological in that both its 
objects and its methods are markedly different, with a constant 
dependence upon this act of " diremption." The thorough discus- 
sion of the philosophy of nature and of the philosophy of mind, 
as distinct branches of metaphysical inquiry, must then always 
precede the final synthesis of philosophy. And any attempt at 
such synthesis which omits or relatively depreciates either of 
these two branches is thereby doomed to failure. 

In prosecuting these two more special branches of metaphy- 
sics, the method of reflective analysis as used for the explica- 
tion of the categories will no longer suffice. The general forms 
of all being are indeed implicated in all knowledge. But the 
satisfactory answer to the questions, What is the real being of 
the system of Things ? and What is the real nature, and rela- 
tions in reality to the World, to its fellows, and to God, of the 
human Mind ? implies a vast accumulation of positive scien- 
tific knowledge. Accordingly, the validity and completeness of 
any answer to these questions — and this is the same thing as 
the truth and comprehensiveness of our philosophy of nature 
and of mind — depend upon its attainments in scientific 
knowledge, and upon its ability to give a philosophical treat- 
ment to such knowledge. For philosophy employs for its 
material, not only the principles presupposed in all knowledge, 



256 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

but also the principles ascertained by the particular sciences. 
It does not aim to construct the world of physical and psychi- 
cal existences as a system of pure thoughts, or even to know it 
as such a system. It aims rather to know what these exist- 
ences really are, in accordance with the growth of knowledge 
derived from all the particular sciences. 

The philosophy of nature and the philosophy of mind are 
therefore subjects for the most detailed and comprehensive 
scientific examination. This examination, however, in so far as 
it is strictly scientific, is preliminary to philosophy rather than 
part of it. The appropriate particular sciences hand over their 
principles to philosophy for its subsequent handling. This 
handling consists in subjecting the principles to further criti- 
cism by reflective analysis, and to the interpretation of their 
categorical or metaphysical intent ; it consists also in illumin- 
ing them all by the light of philosophy's supreme synthesis, 
while employing them all in the perfecting of this synthesis. 

It is, of course, impossible for us even fully to sketch the two 
great departments of philosophical discipline whose titles stand 
at the head of this chapter. The bare mention of some of the 
principal subjects which they cover, with an occasional sug- 
gestion or explanatory remark, must suffice. But undoubtedly 
a very brilliant future for them both is near at hand. How 
indeed can it be otherwise, since the interests of philosophy 
are perennial, and the modern sciences of physics, biology, and 
psychology are raising and illumining so many philosophical 
problems ? 

That a philosophy of nature is possible, we do not deem it 
necessary to argue. It is true that Newton bade physics " be- 
ware of metaphysics." But it is also true that Schelling sum- 
moned men to " come to physics and behold the eternal." If we 
understand the warning as simply directed against all attempts 
unduly to influence physical theories from points of view taken 
in a system of pure thinking so-called, it must certainly stand. 
It is as important for the philosopher as for the physicist. Let 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 257 

the former learn from the latter what is known, by those pro- 
cesses of elaborating knowledge which science understands so 
well how to employ, concerning the principles of things. But 
if the Newtonian warning involves the exhortation not to at- 
tempt to take philosophical account of physical principles, not 
to consider each of them in the light of every other, and all of 
them in the light of the supreme syntheses of philosophy, — 
why, then, the warning was neither observed by its author, nor 
should it be observed by any thoughtful man. Schelling's ex- 
hortation, too, must be heard. But it does not fitly woo us to 
those beautiful dreams, supposed to be representative of the 
real life of nature, which the systems of philosophical Abso- 
lutism devised. It encourages us rather to attempt the philo- 
sophical understanding of nature's life, as it is actually presented 
in the accumulations of physical principles that have stood the 
test of experiment, criticism, and continued research. 

The modern science of that system of things we call "the 
World " may be said, so far as its discovered principles are 
necessary to a Philosophy of Nature, to have two main divi- 
sions. The first of these is physics, including astronomy and 
mechanics as dependent upon the physical theory of masses at 
rest or in motion, and chemistry, thermics, magnetism, etc., and 
all the special forms of atomic and molecular combinations and 
motions. The second of these is biology, which on the one 
hand is reaching downward to find its basis in molecular phy- 
sics, and on the other hand is reaching upward to make its 
application, if possible, to the life of souls, or minds. [In mak- 
ing this twofold division we should not forget, but rather 
affirm, the statement of the late Clerk Maxwell : l " Chemistry 
is extending . . . into regions where the dynamics of the pres- 
ent day must put her hand upon her mouth." A similar remark 
is appropriate on considering the utter inability of biology as 
a merely physical theory to follow the extensions of modern 
experimental and speculative psychology.] 

1 Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth ed.), xix. 3. 
17 



258 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

The unobserved real subject of all physical changes is called 
" Matter." What matter is in reality, we are accustomed to be 
told cannot be known. But such a statement rests upon the 
same misconception of the nature of knowledge and its impli- 
cation of reality known, as that with which the theory of 
knowledge made us familiar. Undoubtedly the term " matter " 
may be used to cover a bare abstract conception of one or more 
so-called physical qualities, — a conception insufficiently gene- 
ralized from a few only of the many modes of behavior ex- 
hibited by the known physical objects. In this sense, of 
course, there is no real matter corresponding to the conception 
of matter. There is indeed no matter, in general. But there 
is also no mind, in general ; no quality, in general ; no cause, 
in general ; no motion, in general ; no energy or force, in general. 
That which is in general merely is not real. The " pure " being 
called matter is the equivalent of a pure material nothing ; that 
is to say, it is no " Thing," and has no real existence. 

But matter as known is the subject of every change of 
physical state, of every motion, of every so-called physical 
quality ; it is, therefore, the real cause of all changes in the 
world of physical beings and events. What, more precisely, 
matter is, it is the very business of the sciences of nature 
to tell us ; for they are sciences only as they are knowledge 
of those objects which we call material. Such knowledge 
comes through the intuitions of sense-perception, and through 
the elaboration of scientific research and philosophical reflec- 
tion. The more we gain in knowledge of the manifoldness of 
the life of that one subject, to whose existence all discourse 
of matter and the physical universe refers, the more are the 
certainty and comprehensiveness of the physical sciences se- 
cured. It is he that imperfectly generalizes respecting the 
whole from some one or more of the infinite modes of the life 
of this subject, and then considers his own meagre generaliza- 
tion as adequate to describe the concrete wealth of reality, who 
is most inclined to deny to others all knowledge of this reality. 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 259 

The pride of a superior wisdom, a startling discovery of some 
so-called law, is the forerunner of a fall into the most abject 
depths of agnosticism. 

Matter as known by the senses is an external and extended 
object, having properties which are as many as those perpetu- 
ally recurring modes of experience through the different senses 
which define the immediate knowledge of this object. Of these 
extension itself is the most primary and essential. Without 
extension no object of sense-perception exists. The object 
perceived is necessarily extended ; its extension is of its very 
essence as object. Of its externality the same statements may 
be made. Without externality no object of the senses exists. 
The object perceived is necessarily external ; its externality is 
of its very essence as object. 

But the analysis of psychology, helped to its conclusions by 
philosophical reflection, shows us that we are warranted in 
attributing these qualities of extension and externality only to 
the object which is immediately known as having them. This 
is the object perceived — by the senses of the skin and of the 
eye. Such analysis, in connection with a more or less specu- 
lative theory of the evolution of sense-perception, attributes 
to the mind the action constructing the perceived object. It 
shows that the laws of this evolution, so far as we know them, 
are chiefly laws of the mind. While then it affirms that, if we 
mean by " matter " simply that which is given to us as object in 
every process of sense-perception, we may say it is all necessarily 
extended and external, we cannot say this of matter as possibly 
known or knowable in other ways than by immediate perception. 

Somewhat similar courses of discussion belong to that attri- 
bute of impenetrability which we ascribe to matter. In this 
case, however, our knowledge of the quality ascribed to the 
object is apparently less immediate and direct. We seem to 
ourselves to become gradually aware of the impenetrability of 
objects as we have increasing experience of the difficulty of 
making them cover the same places in space, — whether in the 



260 - PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

field of sight as gathered from different points of view, or, 
more particularly, in the field of touch and muscular sensation. 
But we never become by the senses persuaded of the impene- 
trability of matter in such manner that we can deny a priori 
the possibility that two atoms may coincide. All attribution 
of extension, externality, and impenetrability, to matter must 
then be limited to matter as object known by the senses, or 
as imaged by that sensuous imagination which necessarily fol- 
lows the forms of sense-perception. But that matter as further 
known to physics or to philosophy, as considered irrespective 
of its being an object of sense-perception, must have these 
qualities, neither so-called " common-sense " nor " physical real- 
ism " has any right to affirm. As said Clerk Maxwell, 1 " many 
persons cannot get rid of the opinion that all matter is ex- 
tended in length, breadth, and thickness. This is a prejudice 
. . . arising from our experience of bodies consisting of im- 
mense multitudes of atoms." 

What may be (though it usually is, only with some difficulty) 
seen to be true of the qualities of extension, externality, and 
impenetrability, is more readily admitted with reference to all 
the other qualities of matter. Such are its heaviness or light- 
ness, its hardness and softness, its roughness and smoothness, 
its toughness and pliability, or its friable character; such are 
all the other modes of the behavior of external objects as given 
chiefly by use of the muscles, tendons, joints, and skin. Such 
are its size and shape as known chiefly by sight. All our ex- 
perience, as embodied in our language, explains itself upon the 
theory that the color, smell, taste, and sound of things are to 
be regarded as known events in us, referred for their cause to 
that which is object perceived as extended and external by the 
senses of the eye and the skin. 

But it has already been remarked that all the discoveries of 
the relative character of that object of sense-perception which 
we call matter do not in the least affect the persuasion that in 

1 Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth ed.), iii. 37. 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 261 

knowing this object we have the certification of its reality. It 
is known as a real subject of changing states and relations, that 
is not-ourselves, but that possesses an independent and manifold 
life in the unity of its own "Ground." We affirm, then, with 
so-called " common-sense," the reality of the object known by 
the senses ; and we turn to the special sciences of nature with 
our further inquiry as to what is the real nature of this object 
thus known. 

That real subject of physical changes which we call matter is 
known to modern physics as having Mass. If we take for the 
moment no account of the hypothesis that electricity is a physi- 
cal entity which has, however, no mass, we may say that the 
declaration, — all matter has mass, — is equivalent to affirming 
this quality as universally and necessarily characteristic of this 
real subject. Indeed, the proof that the mass of any portion of 
matter is unalterable, and the inference that the entire mass of 
the physical world is unalterable, have been declared to be the 
most convincing ground we have for believing that matter is 
real. Mass is the absolute and unchanging quantum of any 
portion of matter considered by itself, and of the entire system 
of material entities considered as a unity. It is the business 
of philosophy to inquire what is involved in this accepted prin- 
ciple of all physical science. It is its business to show in de- 
tail how the permanence of a real subject, conceived of as a 
ground or real cause of changing states and relation, with a 
fixed adherence to an end, as it were, is involved in the con- 
ception which physics has of mass. Thus the categories of 
substantiality, causality, relation, change, and number, are all 
implied when we ascribe this quality to matter. This is, how- 
ever, because the quality of mass cannot be considered as the 
only quality of matter. For change and causality do not belong 
to matter as merely having mass. The material universe con- 
sidered as a collection of mere masses of matter would be stati- 
cal ; there would be in it no provision for motion, or life, or any 
form of change. 



262 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

Another universal predicate of matter is Energy, — the con- 
ception which physical science strives carefully to define and 
then to substitute for the popular and unscientific conception 
of force. The latter conception, — we are told, — since it is 
" suggested by the muscular sense," is too vague and anthropo- 
morphic to serve the highest scientific interests. The suggested 
change of terms is doubtless worth the making ; but it does not 
escape the difficulty experienced when we try to tell what, that 
is real in the material universe, is meant by either term. Mod- 
ern physics sometimes claims to consider energy as an objective 
reality in the physical universe, " because it is conserved in the 
same sense as matter is conserved." Strictly speaking, such 
a declaration can have no real significance. Strictly speaking, 
what is meant by the declaration is this, that, on similar grounds 
to those on which we assume the unalterableness of mass, we 
assume that the quantity of energy is unalterable. Both are 
principles established on purely empirical grounds, albeit so 
firmly as to serve as postulates of all reasoning in general 
physics. With respect to the conception of energy also, phi- 
losophy has to consider how far it represents the real nature of 
that subject called matter to which it is given as a predicate by 
physical science. For philosophy is satisfied neither with that 
" figurate conception," which regards forces as inherent in mat- 
ter, or as passing from one portion of matter to another, etc. ; 
nor can it tolerate that dodging of the metaphysical question to 
which physics resorts, when it tries to reduce the essence of 
energy to changes in amounts and directions of motion. 

When, then, we learn from Newton that " force is whatever 
changes a body's state," etc., and hear that the phrase, " or tends 
to change," has been added to the Newtonian definition ; and 
when we are told that energy is " the power of doing work," or 
" the capacity for operating, or for producing an effect " (namely, 
motion), the shifting of phrases should not deceive us. We are 
not to suppose that physics has thus escaped the use of meta- 
physics, or the need of a more accurate metaphysical analysis. 






AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 263 

For every one of these so-called scientific definitions fairly 
bristles with the old-time presuppositions and beliefs. A Being 
of matter, which makes it an agent, a cause of changes, the pos- 
sessor of potentialities and powers, is certainly implied as known 
in all this. 

The science of physics strengthens our conviction by its 
division of energy into " potential " and " kinetic," and by its 
discourse of " tendencies," " strains," " tensions," etc. ; as well 
as by its statement of laws such as affirm that " to every action 
there is always an equal and contrary reaction," or that " every 
action between two bodies" is a stress. For every material 
body, the real subject of its energy potential and kinetic is 
the same portion of matter ; and for the world at large it is 
the same unchanging quantum of universal matter. Every 
material body may then be regarded as a "system," more or 
less imperfectly complete in itself ; but the entire quantum 
of matter is the universal material system, The energy which 
every system possesses, in virtue of the relative motions of its 
parts, is called " kinetic ; " the energy which every system 
possesses, in virtue of the relative positions of its parts, is 
called " potential." 

For every system, large or small, whether comprising one 
body or many bodies, the principle of the conservation of en- 
ergy holds true. But in every system both forms of energy 
must be conceived of as co-existing in reality. The evidence 
of the kinetic energy is the direct or indirect knowledge of 
actual motion, for energy is "whatever changes the state of 
rest or uniform motion of a body." But such a thing as a 
state of rest is never actual ; on the contrary, now and from 
the beginning every really existent material system must be 
known, and thought of, as ceaselessly in motion. Therefore by 
potential energy also we mean the real cause of motion. For 
we are told, " the word ' potential ' does not imply that this en- 
ergy is not real and exists only in potentiality ; it is energy, 
and has as much claim to the title as it has in any other form 



264 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

in which it may appear." And, of course, in order that the 
sum of the two forms of energy may remain in any system the 
same, if the two co-exist in reality, they must be interchange- 
able. In reality, then, potential and kinetic energy are only 
two forms of manifesting the presence of that one cause of all 
motion, possible or actual, which we call matter. 

The modern theory of dynamics affords to the philosophy of 
nature the materials for reflective analysis from which to know 
the character and laws of that unity of reality which accounts 
for the existence of manifold physical changes. These changes 
are all conceived of as related to each other, and as measurable 
quantities of mass and energy. Motion is the one form of real 
change to which this theory reduces all the other perceived 
physical changes. Motion implies the applicability of the cat- 
egories of time and space to matter, not only as object imme- 
diately perceived, but also as reality scientifically known. But 
the motion of which we have immediate knowledge by the 
senses is a perceived change of place. The reality of the 
motion, as a change in the real subject, is no more certified 
as a copy of the change perceived, than is the reality of its 
extension by the extension of the object perceived. 

Moreover, we have just heard of "tensions," and " tendencies" 
to move, and potential energies, that are not conceivable in any 
terms as actual correlates of motions perceived. And yet the 
entire possible round of changes, which can take place in the 
subject called matter, would seem to be expressible only in 
terms of motion. Are space and time then necessary as ex- 
tended actualities in which real masses may actually come and 
go as do the perceived objects of the senses ? Surely here are 
difficulties and apparent contradictions in the very core of 
physical science. Shall we say that the more " pure " and 
demonstrable it becomes, by reduction of all its formulae to 
mathematical relations in the amounts and directions of motions, 
the more sensuous and philosophically indefensible do its 
conclusions seem ? 



AND PHILOSOPHY OP MIND. 265 

The property of mass, considered as a constant united with 
certain variables, gives rise to two other properties of matter : 
these are Weight and Inertia. If two bodies having mass are 
placed at a given distance from each other in space, and are 
unhindered, they at once develop motion toward each other; 
or if in any way hindered, they develop some pressure or strain 
indicative of a so-called tendency to motion. As capable of do- 
ing this they are said to have weight : and since this capacity is 
measurable, all matter, as ponderable, falls under the category 
of number. But since that which produces, or tends to produce, 
motion is called " force," it is found necessary to assume a spe- 
cific cause of the weight of all bodies that have mass ; this 
cause is called the " force of gravity." The uniform modes of 
the variation in quantity of this force are then called the " laws 
of gravity ; " and the force of gravity is said to vary directly 
as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance of the 
bodies displaying this property. 

So also do we find that bodies having mass, when at rest, 
never begin to move, and when already moving never change 
the velocity or the direction of their motion, without having 
regard, as it were, to the amounts of the mass, and the velocities 
and directions of the motion, of other bodies. All matter is 
therefore said to tend to remain in its present state, — of rest, if 
it be at rest, and of motion with a given direction and velocity, 
if it be in motion. This tendency too is measurable ; and the 
general capacity of matter to develop this tendency is called 
" inertia." The amount of the unwillingness, in any one body, 
to change without taking regard of other bodies, is considered 
to have its cause in the amount of potential and kinetic energy 
possessed by such body. Thus is the property of inertia made 
to imply a unity of causality to account for the changes 
of position in space which the different masses of matter 
undergo. 

The manner in which the student of physics works out and 
expresses in numerical terms the changing relations of mass, 



266 • PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

weight, inertia, and force kinetic or potential, should be instruc- 
tive and stimulating to the student of philosophy. Here a 
circulus in concijpiendo as well as in arguendo is everywhere 
apparent. Even with these comparatively few and simple 
factors to take into account, the explanation of reality by the 
science of physics is far from being complete. But all attempt 
at complete explanation is made more difficult by the apparent 
necessity of admitting the presence, in the unity of the physical 
universe and as essential constituents of it, of other entities 
than those to which the foregoing properties apply. Such an 
entity, apparently, is the so-called ether ; another such — un- 
less the two shall be found to be really one — is electricity. 
Undoubtedly, the inclination to follow to the utmost the love 
of simplifying by analogical and symbolic reasoning will incline 
us to affirm that these entities must have, at least to some 
extent, the above-mentioned properties of other matter. But 
keeping within the strict limits of ascertained scientific truth, 
we have little right, at present, to claim that this is so. The 
energetic and skilful efforts of a Sir William Thomson have 
not as yet developed any satisfactory theory of the unknown 
medium of the waves of light which will serve to liken it to 
so-called " ordinary " matter. And the trend of discovery in 
electricity is perhaps in a direction to remove this entity farther 
away from the possibility of applying to it the laws of those 
bodies that have mass. Yet these entities are, as has been said, 
factors in the unity of the material universe. 

We should have no hesitation then in enlarging our use of 
the terms " matter " and " mass." Entities like ether or elec- 
tricity are also kinds of matter ; and since they are measur- 
able they may be said to have mass, although no signs of their 
being ponderable can be discovered. Weight and inertia are 
therefore not essential properties of the subject of physical 
changes. Indeed, no valid a priori reason can be discovered 
why there should not be as many kinds of matter " in mass " 
as there are admitted kinds of atoms, or elements of material 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 267 

reality. Neither can we ever establish, on other than grounds 
of probability by extension of experience, the propositions re- 
lating to the inertia of all matter, and to the conservation of 
mass and of energy. For even these few and simple factors, — 
properties, forces, laws, — already introduced, indicate that the 
unity of material reality is such as to imply a manifoldness of 
life and being too great to express in terms of physics. The 
manifoldness, however, all falls under the principle of finality ; 
and so the unity is a realized idea. 

The known physical constitution of bodies, or mode in which 
sensible quantities of matter are aggregated to form a mass 
having observed properties, increases the complexity of the 
problems which a general theory of physics is required to solve. 
If we divide all bodies, as respects their physical constitution, 
by the differences in changes of their dimensions resulting from 
internal stress, two great classes must be distinguished. These 
are solids and fluids, — the latter being subdivided into gases 
and liquids. But every mass, whatever its physical constitution, 
tends to resist changes of its bulk and shape ; or — what is the 
same thing — it "requires force to change its bulk or shape, and 
requires a continued application of the force to maintain the 
change, and springs back when the force is removed." This 
property of matter is called " elasticity." Of this property, as re- 
spects their bulk, all bodies are said to have some, and all fluid 
bodies to possess it to perfection. Solids possess some degree 
of elasticity of shape ; fluids no degree of this property. The 
theory of the limits, kinds, and degrees of this property is very 
complicated. It gives evidence of a variety of internal relations 
between the parts of a material mass, under the action of so- 
called forces of cohesion and repulsion, which it is beyond the 
power of the imagination to depict. As modifications of this 
general property of elasticity, many other " properties " arise. 
Such are the viscosity of liquids, the " molecular friction " 
(also sometimes called viscosity) of solids, certain qualities of 
bodies like crystals, resiliency, pliability, torsional rigidity, etc. 



268 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

And yet, with all this manifold equipment of occult properties, 
the unity of the physical universe is somehow maintained. 

But all this variety of the physical constitution of bodies is 
as nothing compared with that which modern chemistry brings 
to view. The coarser changes that result in the redistribution 
of mass and energy suggest changes that consist in the redis- 
tribution of the elements belonging to the mass and of the ener- 
gies belonging to each element. This suggestion is converted 
by chemistry into a demonstration. And, behold ! a world of 
wonders is made obvious to the eye of reason, such as can never 
be made obvious to the eye of sense. . , ^ vv^ 

Modern chemistry postulates nearly sevenlty kinds of elemen- 
tary material existences, each having a most complex nature of 
its own. Not one of these beings ever does anything without 
reference to the behavior of other beings with which it is allied. 
Yet not one of them ever does anything that does not strictly 
comport with its own unchanging laws of behavior. Acting 
together, they form the constitution of all existing material 
bodies, and by their changing relations account for the varying 
properties of these bodies. The general fact of their interrelated 
action, according to the kinds to which they belong and the 
circumstances under which they are placed, is set forth by 
ascribing to them the property of " affinity." The word is a 
symbol of the presence of the most stupendous mysteries. 
Strictly speaking, the sets of properties are as many as are the 
so-called kinds of these atoms ; and the number of properties 
belonging to each set is as many as are the different modes of 
the behavior of each kind under all possible relations. And, 
since the motion or tendency to motion of the atom, requires a 
postulated cause in some force, each atom may be said to be 
the happy possessor of as many forces as are these modes of 
behavior. The principal feature peculiar to these chemical 
forces of the atom is the extremely minute distances over which 
the forces act. 

A distinguished astronomer has said that, at each instant, 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 269 

every body in the solar system is conducting itself as though it 
knew precisely how it ought to behave in consistency with its 
own nature and with the behavior of every other body in the 
same system. But no planet considered as a physical mass 
is at all so richly endowed as is every atom. The atom must 
know precisely how to behave, under an almost infinite variety 
of relations to an almost infinite variety (quantitative and 
qualitative) of aggregations of other atoms, from the begin- 
ning of that everlasting time which science is fond of postulating, 
it has threaded its way securely amidst its fellows down to the 
present hour. It has danced countless millions of miles, with 
countless millions of different partners, many of which required 
an important modification of its mode of motion, without ever 
departing from the correct step or the right time. Surely the 
most fanciful mythology of physics in which philosophy has 
ever indulged, from the " love " and " hate " ascribed to the ele- 
ments by the ancients, to that " mirroring " of the world which 
Leibnitz ascribed to every monad, cannot surpass in magical 
import the " laws " of chemistry concerning the " affinities " 
of atoms. 

This indefinitely great variety in the natures and changes 
belonging to the elements of material reality the science of 
chemistry is endeavoring to reduce to a few general terms. 
The number of elements known to it is, however, on the whole 
increasing rather than diminishing. And since the majority of 
them are comparatively or extremely rare, while the number 
of those combined in the masses of which the earth and its 
plants and animals are mainly composed is exceedingly small, 
the secret reasons for precisely such manifoldness in unity are 
still far removed from human knowledge. The great principles 
of combination by weight and volume, and the form of the 
atomic theory which aims to account for these principles, are 
in the process of elucidation. Through these principles a gleam, 
or at least a glimmer, from the category of finality is always 
seen to appear. A chemical notation is possible ; the elements 



270 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

have "valency," and admit of being arranged as monads, dyads, 
triads, according to their apparent maximum valencies. " Ba- 
tional formulas " are devised in attempting to account for the 
behavior of the atoms. 

For the more satisfactory discussion of the principles of 
chemistry the philosophy of nature will doubtless have to 
await many years of scientific exploration. But enough is 
already known to warrant certain favorite affirmations. The 
very elements of all known material reality, the very beings 
whose unchanging natures are assumed as the basis of all 
change, proclaim the truth of metaphysics. They are perma- 
nent subjects of all physical events. They must be regarded 
as the real causes of the changes in states and relations of 
all material bodies ; but they always act as self-limiting na- 
tures that are united, under an ideal system, into an orderly 
and beautiful whole. They are, only as they are in and 
of that supreme Unity of Eeality, whose essential nature 
and ideal significance philosophy ever strives more clearly to 
define. 

The more complicated inorganic forms which, like the crys- 
tal, tax the " ideal " nature of the atoms for a large contribution 
from their wealth of occult energies, enhance, at the same time, 
the difficulties of physical science and the claims to a hearing 
for philosophy. Meantime, the diverse play of the so-called 
"energy" of masses and atoms goes on. Having admitted a 
mode of energy called " gravity," and another called " heat," 
and another indefinitely large group of modes called " affinity," 
it is difficult to see just where we can stop multiplying modes, 
and yet maintain our consistency. Magnets are facts ; crystals 
are facts, — as truly as are planets and pulleys and levers. 
They are facts, however, to account for which the law of the 
conservation and correlation of energy finds itself inadequate. 
They stand, in the inorganic world, as a rebuke to the prevalent 
unphilosophical identification of this law with the principle 
of sufficient reason or with the category of causality. 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 271 

But when we pass from the realm of the inorganic into the 
realm of living beings, we practically leave behind the equip- 
ment with which physics and chemistry can supply philosophy 
for an understanding of the world of material reality. We have 
the word of Professor Huxley 1 for it : " The biological sciences 
are sharply marked off from the abiological ... in so far as 
the properties of living matter distinguish it absolutely from 
all other kinds of things, and as the present state of knowledge 
furnishes us with no link between the living and the non- 
living." He will readily credit this statement who has thought- 
fully watched the amoeba under the microscope, or the muscle- 
nerve machine under all varieties, degrees, and circumstances of 
irritation. Philosophy has no need to postulate a new metaphy- 
sical entity called " vital force." It is enough to know that the 
phenomena called " life " ascribe to the subject, whose changes 
the phenomena are, an altogether new set of predicates and 
potencies. If we confine ourselves to physical phenomena there 
is no philosophical objection (except that arising from its vague- 
ness) to ascribing, with Mr. Tyndall, to matter (as the " myste- 
rious something by which all this has been accomplished ") the 
" promise and potency of every form of life." 

The word " life " represents an abstract conception. The 
rather does the philosophy of nature require of biological science 
some description of those properties which belong to all actually 
existing beings said to be alive. The question philosophy asks 
is herein only a modification of its more general question. It 
wants to know from biology what it is really to be as all living 
beings are. This question a recent writer has attempted to 
answer, from the scientific point of view, in such terms as 
follows : " A living being is a being composed of elements, 
in incessant chemical renewal and reacting upon one an- 
other in a way to maintain the form and functions [of the 
being] in a determined cycle of evolution, similar to the cycle 
traversed by other living beings from which the one under 
1 Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth ed.), iii. 679. 



272 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

consideration comes forth or to which it is bound by com- 
munity of origin." J 

A living being requires, then, a correlated action of an im- 
mense number of those elements which chemistry describes. 
And yet the life of the community, as it were, does not bind, 
the same atoms to enter into and remain within it ; for inces- 
sant renewal and growth are taking place. But the category 
of finality must also be satisfied ; for an ideal is followed, both 
as respects the morphology and the physiology of the com- 
bination. The form and the functions are maintained ; though 
the same elementary beings, which follow the ideal, are not 
necessarily permanently retained. Moreover, a " cycle of evolu- 
tion," a recurrent conformity to the ideal in consistency with 
series of changes in form and function, takes place. Nor is this 
cycle independent of cycles followed by other beings in like 
manner said to be, or to have been, alive. On the contrary, it 
is similar, not indeed to all the other cycles in all respects, but 
to certain definite kinds of cycles, to those, namely, from 
which, specifically, it " comes forth, or to which it is bound by 
connection of origin." 

But how is this similarity, specific and determined, and yet 
admitting of so much individual variability, really secured ? And 
what is it that really binds with the bond called " community of 
origin " ? Tn other words, to what in the nature of the really exis- 
tent shall we ascribe this new and most marvellous form of a 
unity of the manifold ? Philosophy insists on asking such ques- 
tions as these. And scientific biology, solely by enlarging and 
refining its description of the correlated phenomena, is unable to 
answer them. It is early in the development of the compara- 
tively new science of biology to expect successful attempts to 
subject its principles to a philosophical treatment. But as the 
biologist is fond of predicting wonderful triumphs for his sci- 
ence in the near future, so may the philosopher indulge the 

1 Fernand Lataste, in the Comptes rendus de la Societe de Biologie, seance 
du 5 Jan., 1889. 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 273 

cheering expectation that his system of conclusions will be cor- 
respondingly enriched. 

This is the place to mention the necessity and the promise 
which lie before philosophy as an offering from biological science. 
Especially urgent does the necessity appear, and especially 
attractive the promise, when we consider the efforts which biol- 
ogy and psychology are making to clasp hands over that barrier 
which has hitherto separated them. Those phenomena to which 
Von Hartmann has appealed in proof of his principle of " the 
Unconscious " are rapidly being multiplied. They are, with 
great difficulty but with promise of an accelerating rate of move- 
ment in the near future, being reduced to generalized statement 
of fact. Some of them provoke philosophy the more because 
they so completely baffle science. Such are the phenomena of 
reflex action ; the phenomena ascribed to " instinct " (that pack- 
horse of explanations that do not explain) and to unconscious 
cerebration ; the phenomena of genius (or of that inborn quality 
of mind which, without the training of conscious processes per- 
forms feats of intelligence and skill ordinarily demanding this 
training) ; and the phenomena of unconscious inference (if such 
there be), and of hypnotic and other similar conditions. 

As problems for philosophy, there exist in the same border- 
land of biology and psychology many other kinds of interesting 
phenomena. Both these sciences are uniting their forces to 
investigate the states of trance, clairvoyance, ecstasy, etc., and 
the cases of hypersensitive beings (for example, as alleged by 
Eeichenbach and modern experimenters in hypnotism), the 
alleged phenomena of thought-transference, telepathy, etc. 
The philosophy of mind is deeply interested in the light which 
such researches throw upon the questions of human personality 
and of the reality of mind. But the philosophy of nature is 
interested in any light which they may throw upon the nature 
of so-called " Nature," of that subject called matter to which 
some investigators would assign all these changes, both physical 
and psychical. 

18 



274 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

No fear need be entertained that the common researches of 
biology and psychology will ever succeed in diminishing the 
incomparability of physical and psychical phenomena. The 
atoms may be found to move, in deference to other atoms, in 
ways that now seem absolutely unimaginable; and psychical 
phenomena may become correlated with the motions of the 
atoms, with a strictness far beyond what we are now willing 
to admit as likely or even possible. But the simplest fact of 
consciousness will remain as unlike the most complicated com- 
bination and motion of the atoms as ever. 

Philosophy will doubtless be greatly influenced by biology, 
psycho-physics, and experimental psychology, as respects the 
construction which it gives to the content of its notion of the 
real subject of all physical change. "We leave the further eluci- 
dation of this content to another branch of philosophical disci- 
pline. We only gather some of the results of this meagre sketch 
of the work belonging to the philosophy of nature into the 
following sentence : All the different substances, forces, and 
laws, known to the physical sciences as belonging to the most 
general conception of " Matter," are to be regarded as the related 
modes of the behavior of one subject, — really existent, the 
self-limiting cause of all material change, in accordance with 
immanent ends. 

The Philosophy of Mind encounters in some quarters a special 
opposition because the reality of its subject is denied. Some-, 
times this denial assumes the character of an a priori necessity, 
or at least of a conclusion derived from such a necessity. At 
other times it is based upon alleged grounds of observation and 
experiment. The primary definition and discussion of this 
problem belongs to psychology. The descriptive branch of this 
science furnishes the analysis of psychical states into their 
simplest elements, gives the history of the genesis of the most 
complex from the most simple states, and defines those uniform 
relations which are found actually to exist among the different 
states. 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 275 

As experimental, biological, and psycho-physical, psychology 
also endeavors to establish correlations between the phenomena 
of consciousness and the structure and functions of the nervous 
mechanism. Comparative psychology aims to explain the psy- 
chical processes — whether of different kinds of psychical beings, 
or of different races of men and eras of human history — under 
principles which belong to all forms of the general theory 
of evolution. In whatever way the science of psychology is 
prosecuted, since it necessarily involves the preliminary assump- 
tion of a subject of the psychical states (the so-called Ego, or 
the generalized conception called the " self "), it introduces the 
problem of the reality of mind. 

Psychology as pursued from the biological, experimental, and 
psycho-physical points of view, is particularly fond of claiming 
its ability to succeed " without a soul." Such ability may be 
conceded, in so far as it is satisfied to remain a science without 
power to explain actual events, by really acting forces, in ac- 
cordance with laws that are valid in reality. But the advocates 
of " psychology without a soul " are often inconsistent in their 
pursuit and practice as regards their favorite principle. For 
the postulate of a single real subject of the phenomena (the 
Mind) they are found substituting some other, less appropriate 
and equally meagre postulate. Thus they make a particular 
congeries of material molecules with a peculiarly rich equip- 
ment of potencies, to be the real subject of all the psychical 
states and processes. That is to say, matter, assumed to be 
known as an indubitable reality, is the one real subject which 
somehow has acquired the power to develop a phenomenal being 
(the so-called " soul "), in whose activity alone it is itself known 
as real through the means of the phenomenon of a metaphysical 
postulate. This may well seem even to its most ardent advo- 
cates a somewhat extraordinary potency to ascribe to matter. 

The final syntheses of philosophical system must un- 
doubtedly recognize that Unity in Reality which the known 
universe of material and psychical beings certainly implies. 



276 • PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

So far forth it must certainly be a monistic system. But in 
order to be a true system it must be, not only consistent in 
elaborating the content of all known physical and psychical 
facts, but also in fundamental accord with the primary fact of 
knowledge. This primary fact of knowledge has been seen to 
implicate the duality in reality of the subject of knowing, 
which is the object known in self-consciousness, and the object 
known as the subject of physical changes. Indeed, it is upon 
this primary fact of knowledge, with what it implicates, that 
the distinction between " Things " and " Souls " is based. Upon 
the same basis rests the distinction between the physical 
sciences and the psychological sciences, and the distinction 
between the " Philosophy of Nature " and the " Philosophy 
of Mind." 

But the reality of the Mind is implicated in the primary 
fact of knowledge in a peculiarly convincing and impregnable 
manner. The fact of knowledge itself is the first and funda- 
mental reality. As such it is, in its very nature, the self- 
realization of the knowing subject. As a fact, it is the realest 
of all events ; it is the very type of all actuality, — the occur- 
rence which is a datum, behind which, or beyond which, 
knowledge cannot go. Whatever is implicated in it is real; 
to attempt to question this is to imply it, and so is the attempt 
to explain it. Indeed, no agnosticism or materialism can ques- 
tion the reality of the subject of knowledge in so far as it is 
given in the fact of knowledge ; neither of these forms of think- 
ing claims to call it in question. And this reality can as little 
be explained by rational psychology as it can be questioned 
by agnosticism or materialism. 

It is during the detailed effort to show precisely in what 
sense we are to understand the reality of mind, that the diffi- 
culties of the philosophy of mind emerge. Here the attempt to 
prove too much is as mischievous to right thinking as the at- 
tempt to disprove what is plainly implied. The mind, in the 
highest and widest flights of self-consciousness, never knows 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 277 

itself by envisaging, as it were, its own simplicity of reality ; or 
by rationally attaching to any particular conception which it 
forms of itself the unquestionable faith of intuitive self-knowl- 
edge. In the light of psychological science and of the prin- 
ciples of general metaphysics, philosophy proceeds to answer 
in detail, — What it is really to be as all minds are. Its narra- 
tive contains as much of truth as it contains of knowledge 
gained by scientific researches and reflective analysis. The 
philosophy of mind, like the philosophy of nature, is subject to 
a progressively improved construction as the psychological sci- 
ences advance, and as reflective analysis becomes more searching 
and complete. 

At the same time, it can never be otherwise than true that the 
living experience of knowledge gives legitimately to the mind 
a conviction, and a clearness of representation and conception, 
touching its own reality, which it is quite impossible for it to 
attain, touching the reality of so-called things. With the irre- 
sistible force of this living experience any attempt at metaphy- 
sical materialism will always have to deal. And psychology, 
studied in unprejudiced fashion, never has any difficulty in 
overthrowing such a form of materialism. So often as we try 
to postulate matter as a reality, out of which both physical and 
psychical changes are to be explained, we are liable virtually to 
decide the great question of metaphysics in disregard of the 
only authority in metaphysics ; namely, the philosophical mind. 

The work of explicating the content of knowledge in answer 
to the question, What is it really to be a Mind ? is, on the 
whole, then, much easier than the task of forming a philosophy 
of nature. All the categories seem to lose something of their 
vague and figurative character when applied to the description 
of the reality of mental life. Of course, the language employed 
in conveying the description is necessarily figurative. The 
terms for the categories are necessarily embodied figures of 
speech. They are taken from modes of experience that are 
originally of things. The nature of the development of Ian- 



278 PHILOSOPHY OP NATURE 

guage, and the order followed in the development of experience, 
account for this fact. At the same time it is also true that the 
conceptions stirred within the consciousness by the terms when 
applied to the mind are not " figurate," in the same way and 
to the same extent, as when applied to an extra-mental reality 
called matter. For the terms all find their legitimate interpre- 
tation only in actual experiences of the self-conscious mind. 
For example, we have concrete actual experiences with our- 
selves by which to interpret such words as " permanent sub- 
ject," "cause," "force," "quality," "change of state," "unity," 
etc. But it becomes increasingly difficult to tell what these 
words mean, when we transfer them from the mental realities 
in which they are born, to realities of which we have no knowl- 
edge (such as "atoms," "electricity," "ether," " physical energy," 
etc.) except by difficult processes of inference. 

It accords with the foregoing truth to say that the substan- 
tiality and causality of the mind are terms for that which is 
realized in every act of self-conscious knowledge. Every such 
act is essentially referable, and is by self-consciousness actually 
referred, to one subject as its " ground " or real cause. Thus 
also is every such act an actual change of states, known to take 
place by the subject of all changing states. Undoubtedly, we 
find insuperable difficulty involved in every attempt to repre- 
sent, in terms of the sensuous imagination, any reality cor- 
responding to these terms. This is, however, because the 
sensuous imagination has no fitness to represent any of the 
ultimate norms of knowledge, - — the so-called categories. But 
surely no one would think of claiming that the difficulty is 
peculiar to the case of the psychical states and processes. For 
who would think of claiming that he can form an adequate 
picture of what it is to be an atom, and thus to be a subject of 
immanent potencies and actual changes of states ? Or how 
shall we picture to the eye, or on the skin, or in the muscles, 
the force of attraction that binds Mars to the Sun, or unites the 
atoms of oxygen to those of hydrogen in a drop of water ? On 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 279 

the other hand, the essential properties of matter, such as its 
extension, impenetrability, or its mass, weight, inertia, etc., as 
well as its thermic, electrical, magnetic, and other phenomena, 
and the measurement of the quantities of these properties and 
of the relations of the beings possessing them, seem to imply an 
inescapable reference back to processes of a psychical nature. 
But whatever being has the actual experience whose formula is 
cogito ergo sum, that being knows so as to need no telling what 
it is really to be the subject of a state. 

The careful analytic treatment of all the principles of psycho- 
logical science, from the point of view of reflective analysis 
already adopted in general metaphysics, is the peculiar busi- 
ness of the philosophy of mind. When this business is under- 
taken by a community of scholars who are skilled alike in the 
interpretation of modern psychology and in metaphysical theory, 
a new and improved philosophy of mind will be the result. 
The deeper mysteries of the soul will never be penetrated by in- 
vestigators who care for nothing but to add some new fact to 
the somewhat dreary array already existing in psychometry or 
electro-physiology. Nor will these mysteries prefer to disclose 
themselves to him who is satisfied with gazing on the spinal 
cord of a frog while undergoing stimulation, or with cramming 
the latest conceits in psycho-physics from the German labora- 
tories. On the other hand, the high and dry metaphysical con- 
struction of theory in the philosophy of mind is worse than 
inadequate. 

Of all the predicates to be applied, as involved in the very 
nature of knowledge, to the reality called " Mind," none is more 
important or more liable to misrepresentation than its Unity. 
The older rational psychology endeavored to construct, on a 
basis of immediate knowledge, a picture of the soul as neces- 
sarily simple or uncompounded ; therefore indiscerptible ; and 
therefore indestructible or immortal. The picture was copied 
after that of a hypothetical material reality, — an uncom- 
pounded and indissoluble physical monad. The claim for the 



280 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

soul that it is such a unity, with all the allied claims as to its 
indestructibility, was lost in the struggle with criticism and 
scepticism. But why should the philosophy of mind concern 
itself about the establishing of such a unity for the subject of 
psychical changes ? For this is a kind of unity which can, in 
reality, have no existence anywhere, either in the realm of 
matter or in that of mind. In other words, to be really exist- 
ent, whether as a " Thing " or as a " Soul," implies a different 
kind of unity from that which the old psychology ascribed to 
the mind as its peculiar privilege, its most precious treasure. 

The grounds of the mind's claim to be a real unitary being 
are laid in every act of self-conscious knowledge. In every 
such act the subject of the act becomes, in the highest sense 
of the word, really one, and knows itself as one. But to repre- 
sent this real but psychical unity after the analogy of a rigid 
and unchanging oneness of being, is to miss the very condi- 
tions of its existence at all. There is, in reality, no unity that 
is not an actual unifying of the manifold. And this the mind 
is, really, in every actual event of self-conscious knowledge. Of 
this event we may say that it is, in its nature, a realization of 
the highest — nay, of the only conceivable — kind of psychical 
unity. 

All that is implicated in this admitted unity of consciousness, 
as a concrete and actual and indubitable experience, it belongs 
to the philosophy of mind to set forth. The task is made more 
important and difficult, as well as interesting, by two classes of 
scientific considerations. These are, first, such as bear on the 
doctrine of " faculties " of the mind ; and, second, such as have 
to do with certain abnormal or unusual phenomena, like so- 
called " double-consciousness," etc. But in the treatment of 
these and other allied considerations, the futility of all attempts 
to construct a doctrine of the soul's unity, as involving its 
indestructibility, upon a basis of so-called intuitions should be 
conceded. Immortality of mind cannot be envisaged in self- 
consciousness. Neither can it be intuitively known what it 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 281 

would be to be really one, as every mind is one, if all the 
peculiarities of the concrete process of self-knowledge were left 
out of the account. But he who mourns over the loss of power 
to establish by intuition the soul's indiscerptible simplicity in 
reality, and its resulting immortality, does his own soul a wrong 
that is not necessary. It is hard to see what advantage one 
would have, if one could really be an immortal unit without 
the actual life of self-conscious knowledge ; and equally hard 
to see what one would lose by the dissolution of this merely 
mathematical unity, if only one could continue to experience the 
benefits of actually living the manifold life of self-consciousness. 

Modern psychological science, by its modification of the old- 
time theory of faculties, has done much to improve the philos- 
ophy of mind. In this work great credit must be awarded to 
Herbart and his followers. The credit is all the greater be- 
cause they have never fallen into the folly of trying to establish 
a " psychology without a soul." No one making such an attempt 
can rightly claim to be a disciple of this successor of Kant at 
Konigsberg. 1 The unity of the real subject of all the psychical 
changes is a postulate from which Herbart does not swerve. 
The prevalent doctrine of faculties he rejects on the ground of 
its inconsistency with the true being of the soul, which he re- 
gards as a simple, real essence. Like every such essence, it can 
have only one attribute ; for plurality of attributes is inconsis- 
tent with real unity of subject. Its sole attribute is its one 
mode of reaction, of "self-preservation," as it were, on every 
occasion of its being in " propinquity " or " connection " (Zu- 
sammensein) with other real beings. The characteristic mode 
of the soul's reaction in self-preservation is ideation ; and as 
combinations and modifications of ideation-processes all the 
psychical life is to be explained. 

The effort of Herbart to regard every psychical act, and every 
so-called psychical faculty, as but a mode of the life of the one 

1 Herbart's work is entitled, Psychologie als Wissenschaft, neu gegriiudet auf 
Erfahrung, Metaphysik und Mathematik, Konigsberg, 1824. 



282 PHILOSOPHY OF NATUKE 

subject, whose nature unfolds itself in accordance with its im- 
manent idea, is most praiseworthy. But the form which he 
gave to this effort is needlessly narrow. All attributes or facul- 
ties are indeed only modes of the behavior, under changing re- 
lations, of the one real subject called Mind. But the unity of 
this subject is not a punctual unity ; neither is it a unity such 
as forbids it to behave in more than one fundamental mode of 
reaction. It is, as we have already seen, a unity which implies, 
the rather, a manifoldness of momenta or factors in every actual 
activity ; and, accordingly, a number of predicates (faculties or 
powers) as shown in the actuality of every act. 

But especially is the unity of the mind demonstrated in the 
character of its evolution. Of no other real being is it true, to 
the same extent or with the same remarkable significance, that 
what it really is can be known only by what it actually becomes. 
So that if we entertain the fiction of describing all that the mind 
really is in terms of a single attribute, we may select as this at- 
tribute, its " capacity for development." This is substantially 
what Wundt has done 1 at the conclusion of his psycho-physical 
examination of the nature of the soul. "By the term 'soul,'" 
says he, " we mean the inner being of the same unity which, 
from the external point of view, we regard as the body belong- 
ing to it." This irresistibly leads to the postulate that " spir- 
itual being is the actuality of things, and that its most essential 
property is development." Little of scientific or philosophical 
value would be gained, however, by making such a declaration 
respecting the one " essence " of the soul's life. The wonderful 
variety of powers, or qualities, implied in the actual variety of 
its changing states, remains as great as before. These are all 
implied in its development. Nay, more, the fact that its being 
is a life, which consists in the actual unfolding of these implied 
powers, in definite relations and according to many laws, but 
with the unity of a self-realizing idea, enhances our estimate of 
the number of its predicates. The qualities or faculties of the 

1 Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologie, ed. 1880, ii. 463 f. 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 283 

mind can never be fewer in number than those modes of the 
behavior of all minds which refuse to be reduced to similar 
terms. The. philosophical doctrine of the mind's unity is there- 
fore not dependent upon the number of the mind's faculties 
which the science of psychology accepts. 

The philosophy of mind can scarcely be in like manner indif- 
ferent to the scientific description and explanation of phenomena 
like those of " double consciousness," etc. It cannot easily es- 
cape the feeling that some of the views still current as to the 
soul's real nature may be profoundly modified by the progress 
of scientific investigation. The same thing is true of the al- 
leged cases of unconscious surrender of the will of one person to 
another, of attribution to the wrong will, as it were, with self- 
condemnation and remorse, of the results of conduct, and of 
other abnormal and pathological phenomena of an ethical order. 
In general, it must be said of all such material for philosophical 
consideration that it still needs to undergo a great amount of 
strictly scientific elaboration. In certain lines, psychology has 
during the last twenty-five years been among the most enter- 
prising and successful of all the empirical sciences. For that 
very reason, it has acquired an immense mass of material, partly 
derived from observation unchecked by experiment, and partly 
from more or less unsuccessful experiment, which requires 
further testing. It is quite too soon to assume, on grounds of 
empirical psychology, the necessity of reconstructing all the 
categories. On the other hand, that the speculative theory of 
mind, as well as many an ethical and theological theory, will 
need to be re-shaped, there can be little doubt. But the study 
of the history of human thinking is a great quieter of exagge- 
rated alarms at such a necessity. No form of elaborate human 
knowledge is older, or rests on broader foundations, than the phi- 
losophy of the mind. In no form are the changes of important 
opinion slower ; in none are the great centres of accepted truth 
more secure. The student of the philosophy of mind will there- 
fore welcome, as constituting a basis for his theory of mind, all 



284 - PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

the principles discovered by psycho-physics, psychiatry, hyp- 
notism, nervous pathology, and criminal statistics ; but he will 
make sure that all alleged principles are discovered, in fact, and 
that they are so stated as to be properly expressed principles. 

A broad field for philosophical research opens before us when- 
ever we attempt, on a basis of the particular sciences, specula- 
tively to determine the relations of the human mind to matter, 
to other finite minds, and to God. Here it is impossible to 
resist the influence of ethical and sesthetical considerations. 
And as a matter of fact, these relations lie not only in the 
sphere of what actually is, but also in the sphere of what ought 
to be. They require, therefore, for their right speculative treat- 
ment a thorough equipment in the sciences of ethics and ses- 
thetics. Nor can the phenomena of the religious being of man 
be left out of the account. Indeed, for the philosophical theory 
of the relations of mind to other mind, and of all finite minds 
to God, ethics, aesthetics, and the science of religion are quite 
indispensable. 

The general relations of the mind of man to matter are just 
now being made the subject of most painstaking scientific re- 
search. All such relations, in fact, exist (so far as we have any 
information as yet scientifically verifiable) in the form of rela- 
tions between the human mind and the human body. Indeed, 
the progress of science is more and more in the direction of 
treating all the more abnormal and astounding phenomena in 
terms of these relations. 

The philosophical importance of studies in psycho-physics 
and physiological psychology is therefore obvious. These 
branches of psychology have already made important changes 
in the philosophical points of view, if not in the tenets of phi- 
losophy. The ancient figures of speech, which allow or invite 
us to speak of the body as the " seat," the " tabernacle," the 
" organ," of the mind, are rapidly being clothed with a new 
meaning. Reflective analysis discovers a single great truth as 
underlying all these figures of speech. The life of the mind is 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 285 

one of development in reciprocal dependence on being that is 
other than itself. That this life is its own life, remains as true 
to-day as ever before. That the development is a spiritual de- 
velopment, and implies a spiritual nature and spiritual potencies 
belonging to the subject of the development, psycho-physics 
can never disprove. But this mind-life begins and continues, 
a development related under law to the genesis and develop- 
ment of a manifold unity of interacting material molecules. 
It is quite too much to expect that the physics of masses or 
of molecules, or that chemistry, or biology, should adequately 
explain the existence and unfolding of this series of spiritual 
relations. And we have no adequate reason for affirming that 
any of the principles of these sciences reign supreme over such 
relations. Indeed, the most general principles of these sciences 
— such as the conservation of mass and the conservation and 
correlation of energy — avowedly cannot be maintained between 
brain-motions and psychical states. 

At this point philosophy enters another protest against the 
current tendency to bring all the force of the principle of suffi- 
cient reason to bear in favor of a materialistic theory of mind, 
and even to make the working postulate of physics co-extensive 
with the category of causality. Psycho-physics and physiologi- 
cal psychology can never, whatever extension of their discoveries 
may in the future be made, invalidate the reality and spiritual- 
ity of the subject of psychical changes. These sciences, at most, 
can only present the general facts of correlation between psychi- 
cal changes and changes in the relations of the substance of the 
brain. Phenomenally considered, the correlations are recipro- 
cal. There is as good and unimpeachable evidence to show that 
the latter are, in turn, conditioned upon the former, as that the 
former are conditioned upon the latter. Considered metaphysi- 
cally, each class of changes requires its own characteristic sub- 
ject as its cause or " ground." If the regard that mind shows 
for molecules of matter, and the regard shown by them for it, 
is an ultimate mystery, we are no worse off (provided we can 



286 PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE 

formulate the terms of this regard, — " the laws " of the corre- 
lation) than we are with respect to the real causes of reciprocal 
physical changes. But it belongs to philosophy in its attempts 
at a final synthesis of the principles of both Things and Souls, 
— that is, of all finite reality, — to determine, if possible, the 
nature of that Unity in which they all have their " Ground." 

Both the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Mind 
require the thoughtful consideration of one doctrine which is 
potent in both realms. We refer, of course, to the theory of 
evolution. The metaphysics of this theory, as it is taught on 
purely scientific grounds, is often extremely crude and incon- 
sistent. This is largely due to two causes. The scientific 
advocate cannot elevate his interpretation of certain facts of 
observation to the place of a supreme principle, without calling 
freely upon a priori considerations to fill in the gaps and enlarge 
the circumference of his legitimate inferences. Moreover, if the 
theory of evolution is itself anything more than a passing fancy, 
it is representative of what has gone on, and still goes on, in 
the world of reality. Therefore, it is legitimately philosophical 
in its nature. Therefore, it needs not less metaphysics, and 
surely not more of poor metaphysics, but, the rather, more of 
better metaphysics. And, indeed, what can be more inspiring 
to the student of philosophy than the demand made upon him 
by the present condition of science in respect of the doctrine of 
evolution ? He is invited to regard the universe, not as a stati- 
cal affair, a problem in mechanics admitting of an a priori or 
mathematical solution, but as a history of genesis and growth, 
as one vast and continuous self-unfolding Life. This require- 
ment does not justify the removal of important and eternal 
distinctions. It is not as though the categories were all invited 
to a kind of hara-kiri. The theory of evolution constitutes 
a demand for an enlarged philosophical interpretation of the 
world, as a totality in all space and all time, — the Unity of 
a progressively self-realizing Idea. 

The exclusive or undue emphasis of the considerations pecu- 



AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. 287 

liar to either of the two departments of metaphysics results in 
the one-sided tenets of one of the two great rival schools of 
philosophy. Kealism almost invariably starts from the physi- 
cal, and ends in the philosophical interpretation of all that is, 
and happens, through natural forces and laws. Idealism starts 
from the purely psychological interpretation, and ends in affirm- 
ing the reality of Mind alone. 



CHAPTER XI. 

ETHICS. 

WITH the introduction of distinctively ethical concep- 
tions and laws we enter upon the second main depart- 
ment of philosophical discipline. Permission was taken to 
call this department the Philosophy of the Ideal (Idealology, 
or Philosophical Teleology). The division itself implies that the 
realm of really existing beings, considered simply as respects 
what they actually are and actually do, does not cover the 
entire sphere of philosophy. Besides that which really is, 
reflection must have reference also to that which ought to be. 
Experience does not consist wholly of the monotonous and 
indifferent cognition of the existence and happenings belonging 
to matters of fact. Neither is all we know, or long further 
to know, covered completely by the sciences which strive to 
systematize, under terms of uniform relation, changes of the 
states, as such, of things and minds. 

That much which actually happens ought not to happen, 
has been the common belief of mankind in all ages. Nor 
does that skilful apologizing for the laws of physical and psy- 
chical existence, which the scientific spirit affects, succeed in 
driving this belief from the human mind. On the contrary, so 
confident do men in general continue, of their ability to distin- 
guish the sphere of actuality from the sphere of the ideal, that 
they without hesitation pronounce judgment against Nature 
herself. She seems to them somehow inexcusably deficient 
in respect of conformity to their ethical and sesthetical ideals. 
So bad or ugly are some things and some souls that — the 



ETHICS. 289 

feeling seems unavoidable — they certainly ought not to have 
been, or even to be permitted to be. For the ignorance and 
prejudice which so frequently accompany this kind of judg- 
ment no apology is offered. But its persistence, as deeply 
rooted in the most fundamental convictions of the mind, is a 
fact which provokes inquiry. Nor is it at all likely that the 
painful discrepancy between what is and what ought to be 
will be in the least diminished by any discoveries of modern 
science. The " struggle for existence," and " the survival of 
the fittest " only, with all that these phrases imply, may be 
clothed by these discoveries in the garb of beauty and benev- 
olence. But the facts to which they appeal appear awful and 
mysterious ; the laws they assert meet with strong repugnance 
from important elements in the life of the soul. And he must 
have become particularly insensitive, on both the ethical and 
the sesthetical side, whose ideals seem to be satisfied by the 
world of reality. 

The ideals themselves, therefore, demand that treatment 
which philosophy employs. For their presence in striking 
contrast to the actual being and behavior of things, is a most 
significant fact. It stimulates reflective analysis to a remark- 
able degree. Inasmuch as these ideals are given in the actual 
experience of the human mind ; and inasmuch also as the mind 
strives to bring itself and all the procedure of physical forces 
and laws to the test of the standards required by the ideals, — 
synthetic philosophy must take great account of them. Philo- 
sophical Ethics and ^Esthetics are therefore legitimate and 
necessary branches of philosophy. 

Moreover, it is in this general department that philosophy 
takes hold upon the principles of conduct. Some might — it is 
possible — dispute with Matthew Arnold over the exact frac- 
tion which should be chosen to designate that portion of " life " 
which " conduct " is. But even if we restrict the term to such 
action as is performed, with more or less of deliberation and 
choice, in the intelligent pursuit of ends, a philosophy of con- 

19 



290 ETHICS. 

duct is required. Indeed, it is in its approaches to the treat- 
ment of ethical principles, and in its consequent influence on 
the life of duty and of religion, that philosophy comes into 
closest contact with the interests of men. Were it possible, 
then, for philosophy to neglect ethics and aesthetics and still 
aim at completeness in its own domain, such neglect would be 
impolitic. 

All the different schools of philosophy attempt to meet the 
demand for philosophical analysis and philosophical system 
made by ethical and gesthetical phenomena. Even agnosticism, 
which is no philosophy in so far as it remains consistent ag- 
nosticism, aims at establishing a theory of ethics. Just at 
present, as a matter of fact, it has attached itself to a so-called 
" ethics of evolution." Schopenhauer and Hartmann, also, feel 
constrained to give especial attention to ethical philosophy. 
It is indeed an integral part of the philosophical system of 
both that the so-called " Ground " of all phenomena is neces- 
sarily iMiethical. Yet the pessimistic pantheism which these 
thinkers advocate aims, in their case, to be especially fruitful 
in the interpretation of ethical and aesthetical phenomena. 

Glimpses of profounder reasons for the need which philosophy 
has of ethics and sesthetics come to us from the principles 
already established. Even general metaphysics and the philoso- 
phy of nature excited the conviction that what we call " Matter," 
as the cause of physical events and the ground of physical 
beings, is not without an ideal character. The unity of being 
which material things are known to have, seemed to imply the 
immanence, as it were, in the subject of all these changes of a 
self-limiting idea. And when the sciences of nature and of 
mind were seen to be converging upon the problem of deter- 
mining the most general relations in which "Things" and 
" Souls " stand to each other, and to the Unity of Reality whose 
being and action determine the natures and relations of both, 
the horizon where philosophical knowledge reaches its limit 
began faintly to appear. For, certainly, the nature of this 



ETHICS. 291 

fundamental Unity of Keality cannot be investigated, if the 
presence and meaning of our ideals are to be left out of ac- 
count. Herein must be found the real and the final cause 
of the arising and growth of these ideals. We are persuaded 
that much more than this will appear true as regards the 
relation of " the Good " and " the Beautiful " to that Unity of 
Eeality which philosophy seeks. This very advance of our 
knowledge philosophy aims to secure by cultivating ethics, 
aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion as important parts of 
its discipline. 

The Philosophy of the Ideal is, then, a main cognate depart- 
ment of philosophy, in distinction from the department of 
Metaphysics. It treats of that which men have the idea ought 
to be, as distinguished from what they know really is. So far 
forth there is reason in the twofold division adopted, for exam- 
ple, by Diihring, 1 into philosophy of science and philosophy of 
life. In the latter (which includes ^Esthetics and the Philos- 
ophy of Eeligion) we seek for the application of reflective 
thinking to the ideals of life, — of life, in the widest sense of 
the word. Thus understood, human living includes, as its 
choicest experiences, the production and joyous appreciation 
of beauty, the doing and loving approbation of duty, the 
knowledge, trust, and blessed communion of soul, toward 
God. As Calybaus 2 has pointed out, the distinction between 
science and wisdom is one of the oldest and most firmly rooted 
in the popular mind and in philosophy. 

It would be a fatal mistake, however, to suppose that the 
Ideals, with which this department of philosophy is concerned, 
stand in no empirical relation to the concrete realities consid- 
ered by the physical and psychological sciences. That these 
ideals— the conceptions of the beautiful and of the morally 
good, and the feelings and dispositions attaching themselves 
to each — exist in the form of concrete psychical states, is a 

1 Cursnsrder Philosophie, p. 1 f., 8 f., etc. 

2 Fundamentalphilosophie, p. 22 f. 



292 ETHICS. 

matter of fact determined by observation of others, and by 
self-consciousness. Their existence all along the path of 
human evolution is testified to by many phenomena of human 
history. But much more than this is indisputably true. The 
structure of human society, the products of legislation and of 
art, the constitution of literature, are all complex forms of 
reality which have their source in these ideals. Indeed, in a 
limited but not unimportant way the influence of these ideals 
has been felt in modifying external Nature. Even the surface 
of the earth and the course of the seasons is not isolated from 
effects more or less directly due to the conceptions of men re- 
specting the Beautiful and the G-ood. Nor does our imagina- 
tion succeed in defining just how much more, with the growth 
of knowledge, may in time come into the sphere of physical 
changes that are possible through a wise or a foolish use of 
means on the part of mankind. 

When we consider the influence of the real upon these ideals, 
our views become more clear and defensible No one ac- 
quainted with the modern sciences of ethics and aesthetics can 
for a moment maintain that the conceptions, feelings, and 
judgments, which control human conduct, have developed in 
complete independence of the world of facts. The two spheres 
— the one, of that which actually is, the other of that which we 
think ought to be — are not identical ; they are rather in some 
respects exclusive of each other or antagonistic. But they are 
certainly not wholly independent. We rely chiefly upon an 
historical and comparative study of the phenomena to show 
how the forces and laws of material reality have influenced the 
ideals which men frame of the beautiful and the morally good. 
But it is not with the descriptive history of the alleged 
genesis and development of these ideals that philosophy is 
primarily concerned. It is interested rather in the conclusions 
to be drawn from this history regarding the real nature of these 
ideals. It is also especially interested in the effort to throw 
light on the further definition of that Unity of all Beality which 



ETHICS. 293 

constitutes its final problem in synthesis. Is this One that 
is the "Ground" of all the manifold life of related action in 
which things and souls engage, to be conceived of, and believed 
in, as also the source and actualization of the ethical and 
iesthetical Ideals ? 

The relation of philosophical Ethics and ^Esthetics to phi- 
losophy at large, and to Metaphysics in particular, as well 
as especially to the final synthesis which the Philosophy of 
Religion attempts, should now be obvious. We confine the 
remaining discussion of this chapter to the first of these two 
sub-divisions of the Philosophy of the Ideal. 

The science whose investigations precede the philosophy of 
morals is also called ethics. It is a branch of psychology, — a 
psychological science, in the truest meaning of the words. 
Philosophical ethics treats, by the method and with the spirit 
peculiar to all philosophical discipline, the presuppositions and 
discovered principles of scientific ethics. Here, therefore, the 
relations between science and philosophy are particularly inti- 
mate and often perplexing. Ethical phenomena certainly invite 
scientific treatment. They are certainly also phenomena of a 
psychical origin and character. They constitute therefore part 
of the great domain of facts and laws with which the science of 
psychology, in the widest sense of the word, has to do. But 
just as certainly they are of a unique character, and therefore 
in a measure justify the claims of ethics to a somewhat sepa- 
rate existence as a science. But this unique character does not 
excuse ethical facts and laws from submitting to all the tests of 
science and philosophy. In spite, then, of the shyness of ethics 
to enter the arena of scientific psychology and of critical 
thought, into that arena it must come. There must it con- 
tend ; and by its ability to stand against all the hardest tests 
of science and against all the assaults of scepticism, the reality 
of its conclusions must be judged. 

Ethics as a science presents to ethics as moral philosophy 
certain presuppositions and discovered principles which require 



294 ETHICS. 

critical handling before incorporation into the system of phi- 
losophical truths. The presuppositions it is the work of 
philosophical analysis to explicate and define ; they are to be 
found actually implicated in all the psychological sources and 
norms of conduct. The discovered principles consist of those 
generalizations upon the basis of diverse ethical phenomena 
which the scientific study of man, as capable of conduct and as 
actually exercising this capacity, has already established. In 
other words, if there are, besides those fundamental principles 
(categories), which metaphysics distinguishes as belonging to 
all the actually existent, others which control all our mental 
representations of that which ought to be, it is the task of 
philosophical analysis to point them out. If there are convic- 
tions, rooted in the primary facts of the mind's being, that 
attach themselves to all ethical phenomena, the philosophy of 
the ideal is concerned with these convictions. In general, the 
relation of philosophy to the particular sciences is such that 
philosophical ethics is bound to depend for its conclusions upon 
" data " furnished by observation and induction. 

Scientific ethics has at present two main sources from which 
to derive its system of so-called ethical laws. These are, first, 
the observation of all those phenomena of consciousness to 
which the title " ethical " can properly be attached. It may be 
said that, since the springs of conduct are laid in entire human 
nature and involve every possible form of psychical action, 
descriptive and explanatory psychology must furnish the knowl- 
edge of ethical laws. The second main source of the systematic 
treatment of ethical phenomena is comparative and historical 
study. This study covers the development of ethnic concep- 
tions and customs regarding matters of moral concern. It may 
even embrace those actions of different species of the lower 
animals that are alleged to have an ethical character and sig- 
nificance. Its dominant idea is derived, of course, from the 
modern theory of evolution. 

The observation cultivated by the science of ethics should be 



ETHICS. 295 

as comprehensive and penetrating as possible. It should not 
follow solely the method of introspection ; it should be external 
as well. The study of human conduct as indicative of the 
character of its psychological impulses, antecedents, and prin- 
ciples, may profitably include the debased and criminal classes, 
children, and even idiots and imbeciles. All the verified results 
of such induction the philosophy of morals will be bound to 
take into its final account. It will be bound also, however, 
carefully to weigh each result, and always to remember that in 
the process of realizing our ideals the significance and character 
of the true Ideal appears as the end of the process. Especially 
careful will philosophical ethics be of those hasty generaliza- 
tions, so abundant in these days of laudable ambition to arrive 
at exact science, which are derived from tables of statistics and 
other similar data. The great value of such data cannot be 
denied. But even in less complicated sciences than ethics the 
fruitlessness of merely heaping up tables of facts is sufficiently 
obvious. No amount of external observation, and no hand- 
ling of an indefinitely increased amount of statistics, will ever 
enable the student of morals to dispense with the acquaintance 
with his own nature as gained by intelligent use of introspec- 
tion. In this sphere, pre-eminently, the philosopher needs the 
equipment of personal experience. He needs also, of course, 
the psychological tact and skill necessary to analyze and in- 
terpret that experience. He who has not seen and felt — seen 
clearly and felt deeply — in his own soul the varied experiences, 
— the aspirations, struggles, mortifications, triumphs, and defeats, 
— of moral human nature, is so far forth unfit scientifically and 
philosophically to portray and interpret it. In saying this we 
make no exception of the religious elements and experiences of 
human nature. For in them also we agree with Mr. Spencer in 
finding a "soul of truth." We give, however, to the facts and 
arguments by means of which the conclusion is to be established 
a far different interpretation from that which he proposes. 
The scientific study of the phenomena of ethical conscious- 



296 ETHICS. 

ness results in a view of human nature which includes a 
number of important unsolved philosophical problems. This 
study reveals so-called " human nature " as set over against 
other " Nature " in the most wonderful and sharp contrast. 
That it marks the inherent, universal, and irresistible tendency 
of man to regard himself as not classifiable with " things " and 
as superior to them, the fair and comprehensive student of the 
phenomena cannot doubt. All efforts made in the interests of 
so-called " science " to bring the entire being of man into a 
strict and mechanical connection with the system of things 
meet with their most determined resistance from ethical feelings 
and ideas. The average man is disposed to be docile, on being 
told that he positively must conform to the sovereign sway of 
physics and chemistry, — that he must, indeed, consider himself 
a thinking and feeling machine. But when he is told that 
he must also believe himself to be a moral machine, he posi- 
tively cannot think or feel his way into terms corresponding 
with the required conception. 

The questions which philosophy raises respecting the consti- 
tution of human nature as moral, may be divided into two 
main groups. Of these one contains the problem of so-called 
moral freedom, or " free will ; " the other covers a miscellaneous 
set of inquiries which may be said to deal with the problem of 
the nature of " conscience," — in a somewhat loose and indefi- 
nite meaning of this term. Both these problems, like all phi- 
losophical problems, lead the inquirer quickly into the region 
of those ultimate facts which are data of all experience, and of 
those principles which are its unchanging laws or norms. 

The problem of moral freedom is generally stated in terms 
that provoke discussion as to whether we shall say yes, or no, 
to the question : Is the Will free ? Such a form of statement, 
while not necessarily involving us in error, is certainly liable to 
grave objections. By such use of the term " Will," a so-called 
faculty must first be conceived of as virtually separated from 
the complex life of the Soul j then this faculty must be set 



ETHICS. 297 

over against all the other so-called faculties as on some special 
terms of reciprocal relation with them ; and, finally, the neces- 
sity of thinking this relation as falling under the law of caus- 
ality is either affirmed or denied. The entire treatment of the 
problem thus becomes alien to the methods of procedure em- 
ployed elsewhere in psychology and philosophy. Both parties 
to the controversy over the question, when stated in this way, 
are apt to do violence to the methods and the conclusions of 
these branches of human knowledge. 

The advocate of moral freedom, whenever he can for a 
moment pause in his defensive fighting, is tempted to strengthen 
his position by an untenable theory of " intuitions " and intui- 
tive " beliefs." His view seems to imply that, by an act of 
self-consciousness, one may envisage the entire content of one's 
real being, and see, as with an inner eye, a faculty of Will sit- 
ting in supreme sovereignty upon the throne of the soul. On 
the other hand, the determinist ordinarily contends upon the 
assumption that he, at any rate, has all the clear and positive 
knowledge, all that is worthy to be called science, on his side. 
But his science is too often found to consist in an utterly un- 
warrantable application of a physical hypothesis to the case of 
the human soul. His mechanics and dynamics of the subject 
of psychical states is the more pronounced, the more doubtful it 
is. He assumes that ideas and feelings act on so-called will, 
as masses act on masses, or as atomic entities act on one an- 
other, with measurable forces and directions. To self-conscious- 
ness he concedes only the power to behold the surface of the 
psychical machinery. What he claims for himself, in the name 
of the principle of the conservation of energy, is the power 
infallibly to tell what the co-efficient of the potential part of 
the motive force must be assumed to be. The study of psy- 
chical phenomena, unprejudiced by the determination to make 
quasi-physical conceptions and laws apply to these phenomena 
at all hazards, is quite too tedious a process for him to follow. 
One great principle, however, he certainly feels compelled to 



298 . ETHICS. 

borrow from the equipment of the mind. This is the principle 
of causality itself. But even this is summoned to enforce the 
deterministic conclusion, after being subjected to skilful and 
somewhat unscrupulous manipulation. 

It would be impertinent to offer a discussion of the problem 
of moral freedom in a few words, — so often has the problem 
already been discussed from the beginning of philosophy until 
now. A few words must suffice, however, to indicate certain 
lines along which the discussion may most profitably proceed. 
At the very beginning it is important to determine the nature 
of those primary psychological facts in the existence of which 
the problem of freedom is implicated. These facts may be 
summarized as the one fact of self-conscious and responsible 
choice. That no mind is free until it becomes free, that moral 
freedom, if possessed at all, is gained only after a certain psy- 
chical development is passed through, is an indisputable conr 
elusion from the study of psychology. If, however, the mind 
ever attains to moral freedom, it does this in the forth-putting 
of self-conscious and responsible choice. It is not to mere 
volition that the claim of moral freedom is most intimately 
attached. 

The factors necessary to those psychical activities which are 
best entitled to be called " acts of free will " are the following 
five : (a) Mental representation of two or more ends to be gained 
and of the means necessary to their attainment ; (b) excitement 
of the sensibility in the form of desire ; (c) deliberation, or con- 
flict of so-called motives, regulated by the direction of attention; 
(d) decision, — the appropriation to self of one end, and its sys- 
tem of means, to the exclusion of others (that psychical process 
which corresponds to the words " I will," — choice, peculiarly so 
designated) ; (e) fiat of will (generally, if not always, accom- 
panied by the feeling of effort, and resulting, under psycho-phy- 
sical laws, in starting the train of means necessary to the 
attainment of the chosen end). It is evident that, while these 
factors may be fused, as it were, so as to be almost simultaneous, 



ETHICS. 299 

they constitute, in the order just given, the " moments " of that 
complex self-conscious process in which ethics has a peculiar 
interest. It is evident also that the fourth one (d) is of dis- 
tinctive importance and value. 

The actual occurrence of psychical processes with the factors 
just ascribed to deliberate choice admits of no doubt. Just as 
little doubt can there be that to such processes, pre-eminently, 
are attached the conviction of freedom and the judgment of 
responsibility. I cannot indeed say : I know by the immediate 
knowledge of self-consciousness that, when I thus choose, I am 
a really free being ; but I can say, in the name of this authority, 
I know that I pass through this psychical process of choice, and 
that to myself, considered as the subject of this process, I attach 
the idea and the feeling of being free and responsible. 

This unique psychological fact of deliberate choice comes 
before philosophical ethics for an explanation in accordance with 
the principles which apply to all real beings and actual events. 
It is itself an actual experience ; about this we need not hesi- 
tate. It is a unique experience, and appears in some sort to 
separate the subject of it from other real beings in the world. 
Can the conviction of freedom justify itself in the face of all 
that we know concerning the necessary nature of reality ? The 
conviction has in its favor, not only its own inherent force, but 
also certain conclusions drawn from that conviction of respon- 
sibility to which its relation is so unique. For it is not easy to 
weaken the force of that argument which ethics has so fre- 
quently drawn in these terms, — to be morally responsible, one 
must be morally free. Or, in other words, the responsibility 
of the subject who chooses implies his freedom in choosing. 
How, then, is a place to be made for such convictions in a 
world known to be real under the principles already disclosed 
by science to the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of 
mind? 

It is plain that the answer to this question, so far as it can 
be answered at all, requires the making of several distinctions. 



300 . ETHICS. 

Some of these have already been provided for ; others of them 
are required at this stage in the discussion of philosophical 
ethics. What is it to be free ? What is it to be related under 
the principle of causality ? Are the two, in reality, compatible 
or incompatible ? Can we explain otherwise than by the prin- 
ciple of causality ? If not, and if there be freedom of mental 
action in choice, and if freedom and causality be incompatible, 
how can the fact of such freedom be explained ? But if it be 
inexplicable, may it not still be fact? Or may not the principle 
of causality and the fact of freedom both be so stated as to seem 
not incompatible ? It is with questions such as these that 
philosophical ethics has to deal in its inquiry whether the fact 
of choice, with all that it appears to imply, can be adjusted to 
its place in the world of actually existent things and minds. 

In discussing the foregoing questions, some help may be 
received from considerations with which metaphysics has already 
made us familiar. In all explanation of physical changes we 
found the physical sciences constantly assuming the presence 
and determinative action of the unexplained. For we found 
these sciences referring all physical changes, for their ultimate 
explanation, to certain beings in whose reciprocally related 
action the changes really consist. These beings all had to be 
conceived of as endowed with "natures"; they admitted of 
classification into kinds according to their respective natures. 
What they do is " explained " as due to their fixed and natural 
modes of behavior. They do what they do, as having these 
natures, and yet as always acting in view of the action of other 
beings. But when we seek for an explanation of the " natures " 
themselves, we find ourselves only talking in circles in the effort 
to explain. So the atoms behave, because it is their nature to. 
Such we know their nature to be, because so they always behave, 
That is to say, the explanations of physical science all end in 
the assumption that the real causes of the changes are the beings 
whose the changes are. 

But since the world is many atoms and yet one world, phi- 



ETHICS. 301 

losophy propounds the ulterior view. The changes of the differ- 
ent beings are correlated changes, because the subject of all 
their changes is in reality One. The spontaneity of the action 
of this one Being, as an ideal Unity of the manifold, is taken, 
therefore, as the ultimate fact, as the unexplained " Ground," 
on which the explanation of all the observed changes finally 
depends. 

But when we turned from the philosophy of nature to that 
of mind we found less difficulty in conceiving how there might 
take place in reality the necessary unifying of the manifold 
changes, according to an idea. Every mind is essentially one 
being, subject and cause of all its psychical states, with a 
capacity for development after the fashion of an idea. Every 
occurrence in the development of this being requires, there- 
fore, a reference to the unity of the subject of all the states, 
as its explanation, real cause or ground. In some sort, it is 
true, we " explain " psychical states by other states, either 
physical or psychical ; for the states may be known to follow 
each other in more or less uniform ways. But every such 
explanation is only relative; it implies the existence of a 
" nature " of the soul, considered as one subject of all the 
related states. All psychical processes, however complete our 
knowledge may be of their antecedent or concomitant pro- 
cesses, must be referred to an unexplained spontaneity of the 
subject of them all. 

It will at once be said, and truly, that this result of meta- 
physical analysis only secures for minds the same spontaneity 
that atoms have. The question as to whether the spontaneity 
of mind can so differ from the spontaneity of atoms as to in- 
clude in the former a moral freedom denied to the latter, does 
indeed require a further study of the " natures " of the two. 
Such study reveals the reasons for defining the spontaneity 
of mind so as to meet the demands of moral freedom and 
responsibility. 

Everything we know of atoms compels us to consider them 



302 ' ETHICS. 

as incapable of freedom. No known phenomena suggest the 
occurrence in their case of interior processes with factors corre- 
sponding to those which enter into self-conscious choice. On 
the contrary, all the conclusions of the physical sciences depend 
upon regarding their natures as, from the first, fixed and un- 
changeable. Those orderly, continuous, and reciprocally de- 
termining changes, which evolution delights to describe, depend 
upon the hypothesis that the " natures " of the atoms remain 
the same. But we find that we must mean something different 
from this when we speak of the " nature " of the individual 
mind. Here the modes of the behavior of the subject of them 
all ajjpear as progressively self-determining. The "nature" 
of the subject is not only expressed in every choice, but within 
certain limits it is dependent for its characteristics upon every 
choice. That this is so, many of the phenomena with which 
all our science of life is familiar tend to demonstrate. For they 
confirm those naive convictions of freedom and responsibility in 
choice, to which reference has already been made. And if other 
phenomena tend to show that what we call the mind's nature, 
as already acquired, must be regarded as in part accounting for 
the character of each choice, this truth is not inconsistent with 
the spontaneity of freedom. Indeed, it may be claimed that the 
contrary of this would be incompatible with a true mental de- 
velopment. The spontaneity of mind actually arises and main- 
tains itself as a living process of self-determining development. 
For that unexplained and inexplicable spontaneity which we 
call the " nature " of the mind is not, like the nature of the 
material elements, fixed and unchanging from the beginning to 
the end of its activity. 

And now it may be claimed by the determinist, and objected 
by the advocate of free-will, that to ascribe the determination 
of the choice to the unexplained nature of the mind is a com- 
plete surrender of the freedom of the choice. For this " nature " 
of the mind is itself as truly determined by inheritance and 
environment as is the nature of the atoms. It can therefore be 



ETHICS. 303 

said to be unexplained, only on account of our ignorance of the 
causes which determine it. Individual choices, too, so far as 
unexplained by the direction and intensity of so-called motives, 
when referred to the nature of the person making them, would 
all be explained if only we perfectly knew the nature in which 
they originate. 

We reply to this claim and to this objection that the very 
terms of its statement unwarrantably beg the whole question. 
For what do we mean by " nature," as applied to the mind, but 
its most uniform modes of behavior ? And to say that these are 
from the beginning strictly determined by antecedent and ac- 
companying influences, whether physical or psychical, is to 
assume to know that the nature of mental reality is incom- 
patible with freedom of choice. The assumption is unwarrant- 
able. For no such knowledge of the laws of heredity, and of 
the effect of surrounding influences, can be attained as makes 
it perfectly clear why minds develop as they do ; that is, why 
each one attains a personal character, in a series of choices, no 
one choice of which can ever be said to be strictly predictable 
as determined by the pre-existing influences. 

When then the determinist finds himself unable to account 
for the choice as determined by known influences, and therefore 
refers it to the pre-existing nature of the person choosing, as 
determined by this nature, and therefore not a free choice, he 
may be accused of extracting a real cause from a convenient 
figure of speech. Every man chooses as he does choose, not 
only because of reasons obvious to others, but also because it 
is his nature to. But how do we know it is his nature thus 
to choose ; and what do we mean by his nature as determining 
his choice ? Why, thus he has just chosen ; and has similarly 
chosen often enough before. Yet always with the conviction, 
perhaps, that his choice was free and responsible. 

There would seem then to be no positive argument for the 
freedom of human nature that, as it were, takes us behind the 
ultimate fact of choice, and the convictions attaching themselves 



304 - ETHICS. 

thereto. That is to say, the freedom of the mind in choice can- 
not be explained. But the fact of such freedom does not appear 
incapable of finding a place in the world of real beings and of 
actual transactions, if once we take in earnest the legitimate 
conclusions of a philosophy of the mind. Choice is an indubi- 
table fact of mind. Like every other form of the behavior of 
mind, it is conditioned upon, and correlated with, other transac- 
tions in a world of reality. Unlike every other form of the 
behavior of both things and minds, it has the peculiarity of 
appearing to the mind itself as its own free, self-directing ac- 
tivity. It is the special kind of spontaneity which claims for 
itself the convictions of moral freedom and of responsibility. 
Nor is there anything in the principle of causality, as legiti- 
mately applied to the mind, which constitutes a basis for deny- 
ing the validity of this claim. On showing thus much, the 
philosophy of ethics must apparently cease from further at- 
tempts to explain. 

On the other hand, to take the positions of determinism in 
earnest and maintain them with a perfect consistency ends no- 
where else than in thorough-going materialism. Its case rests 
upon the postulate that all the psychical processes must be 
wholly "explained" on principles similar to those which pre- 
vail in physical science. Hence we are to take, not as con- 
veniently vague and figurative, but as true to reality and 
scientifically exact, the current discourse about the ' " influ- 
ence" of motives upon the will, about the choice being "de- 
termined" by the greatest apparent good, etc. A complete 
psychical dynamics — we are virtually told — must be true ; 
although all human intercourse and estimates of a truly ethical 
sort assume that it is not true. Nor does such a science 
of psychical phenomena hesitate to help itself out by resort to 
metaphysics. Its metaphysics, however, makes light of the 
reality of the mind's continuous but constantly self-directing 
evolution ; it lays emphasis rather on the " nature " and " en- 
ergy " of physical masses and of atoms. In its most extreme 



ETHICS. 305 

and monstrous form it adopts the statement of M. Luys, 1 and 
affirms that all spontaneous effort of the mind is an illusion, 
for every object of attention or choice is forced on us by that 
cunning conjurer, the brain ; because " the cell-territory where 
that object resides has been previously set vibrating in the 
brain." But in this form, determinism is as unintelligible in its 
metaphysics as it is wild in its psycho-physical hypotheses. 

The second important philosophical problem, respecting the 
nature of man as ethical, is the constitution of so-called " Con- 
science." In the more vague meaning of this word it includes 
also all the springs, in sensibility, out of which conduct arises, 
and by which it is influenced. The problem therefore demands 
the analysis of moral human nature by psychological science. It 
is, however, when the inquiry concerns the existence and char- 
acter in human consciousness of certain ideals of all conduct 
that the problem peculiar to philosophy begins to emerge. 

It is scarcely necessary to enumerate the concessions which 
must be made to the opponents of all so-called "intuitional" 
systems of morals. Moral ideals are of course not inborn, in 
the sense that every one is conscious of them at birth. They 
unfold themselves, if they exist at all, into greater clearness as 
the result of a psychical development. Neither do they, any 
more than those categories which metaphysics recognizes, take 
such a shape as enables them to be envisaged, in full content 
of meaning and naked reality, by the self-conscious mind. They 
are rather found as implicated in those judgments which we 
call moral ; and as needing to have their significance and value 
explicated by a process of reflective analysis. Moreover, it 
must be conceded (and to this fact reference will be made 
again) that the judgments which embody, as it were, the ideals 
are the products of evolution and the subjects of change, both in 
the individual and in the race. 

Wliat I think is right ; and, therefore, What I think I ought 
to do , and, therefore, What I morally approbate in myself and 

1 The Brain and its Functions, p. 254. 
20 



306 ETHICS. 

in others, — all this is undoubtedly different in different cases, 
places, and times. To discover the reasons for the changes in 
the content of the judgments corresponding to these words is 
the business of ethical science, chiefly as studied from the 
evolutionary point of view. But to maintain this view is a 
very different thing from regarding the ethical ideals them- 
selves as wholly explicable by the effects of intercourse, environ- 
ment, and education. That I have the ideas of the right, of 
the ought, and of the morally well-deserving ; that I attach 
to these ideas a peculiar value and significance ; and that cer- 
tain unique convictions accompany every self-conscious act of 
applying the ideas in concrete judgments, — all this is the 
problem with which philosophical ethics has to deal. In the 
treatment of this problem, like that of the problem offered by 
the categories to metaphysics, philosophy may begin by dis- 
regarding all the attempts of evolution to account for the 
primary facts. 

The relations of the moral ideals, as dictating the form to all 
moral judgments, are as peculiar and mysterious in respect of 
their ultimate and unquestioned validity, as is the relation of 
the categories to the world of real psychical and physical be- 
ings. These relations are found implicated in the primary fact 
of actual moral judgments. And as thus implicated, they 
appear original, universal, and necessary, as do the categories 
themselves. Indeed, they may without great impropriety be 
called "moral categories," — 'ultimate and irresolvable norms 
of all distinctively ethical life. Of this character reflective 
analysis finds them actually possessed, whether historical 
and descriptive science can explain, or not, by what stages 
of evolution they came into this possession. 

It is a primary fact of moral self-consciousness that some 
conduct is pronounced, or judged " right," and other conduct 
wrong. All beings known to have a moral nature actually do, 
in their judgments, thus discriminate two kinds of conduct to 
which these two mutually exclusive and contradictory predi- 



ETHICS. 307 

cates apply. Some men call that conduct right which others 
call wrong ; and every man is liable, at different stages of his 
moral development, to changes of view as to precisely what 
conduct he shall call by either one of these two predicates. 
But no individual being, man or other animal, can be esteemed 
a subject of truly ethical experience who does not actually 
make the distinction. To make the distinction at all, whether 
in accordance with prevalent judgments or not, — this is, 
in part, what it is to be as all moral beings are. The 
Eight is then one of the universal norms of all moral judg- 
ment. And that this idea is not reducible to lower or other 
terms, may be shown by the fullest appeal to the facts of ex- 
perience. If by " the Eight " we mean to designate any other 
standard of being or action than that uniquely ethical one (the 
morally right), then we mean something other and less than 
all men appear to mean, when they actually pronounce a 
distinctively moral judgment. Nor is it consistent with the 
facts of the most primary ethical experience to regard the op- 
posite of the right, that which we call "wrong," as merely 
negative. By the wrong, men do not mean the merely non- 
right. The predicate wrong is, to be sure, the denial of the 
right ; but it is this as a positive violation, and not an ethically 
indifferent negation, of the ethical ideal. 

Universally and necessarily attached to the idea of the right, 
and like it implicated in the primary fact of moral judgment, 
is the idea of "the Ought," of the binding obligation upon 
choice of that which is deemed right. Whatever conduct is 
judged right, that is also, by virtue of the intrinsic nature of 
this judgment, also judged obligatory. In conduct, and in all 
actual existence and action as far as dependent upon conduct, 
that ought to be which is right. To esteem certain conduct 
right for me, is inevitably to induce the judgment : I ought to 
choose this conduct. On the other hand, that which is wrong 
in conduct, or in reality as dependent on conduct, ought not 
to be. And as for me, what I judge wrong for me, I ought not 



308 ETHICS. 

to choose to do. We are unable even to imagine the possibility 
of the morally right not being morally binding; or of any- 
thing but the right being morally binding. Although, then, 
the idea of the ought is original in the sense that it cannot 
be derived from any other idea, it has a certain dependence up- 
on the idea of the right. Something similar to this we have 
already seen as respects the correlation, but not identity, of 
the categories of substantiality, causality, change, etc. 

Universally and necessarily attached to the idea of the right 
as that which ought to be in conduct, and to the idea of the 
wrong as that which ought not to be, is the idea of Moral De- 
sert. This idea also is implicated in those judgments which 
constitute our primary ethical experience. On contemplation 
of that conduct which is right and therefore ought to be, ethi- 
cal reason pronounces a judgment of approbation. Such con- 
duct (or rather conduct so regarded) is necessarily approbated. 
On contemplation of that conduct which is wrong, and ought 
therefore not to be, a judgment of disapprobation is necessarily 
pronounced. Such conduct is necessarily disapproved. 

Judgments which pronounce moral obligation and moral 
desert are accompanied by a peculiar tone of feeling. The 
judgments, "he ought," or "I ought," cannot be made with 
clearness of ideation and indifference of feeling, at the same 
time. Here knowledge is necessarily penetrated with some 
warmth of emotion ; and if the element of feeling be totally 
wanting, the judgment lacks something characteristic of all 
ethical judgment. In token of this fact we may instance the 
use of the word " feeling " as applied to the same complex 
psychical process which is also called a judgment. Indeed, 
men say " I feel that I ought," rather than " I judge that I 
ought ; " and moral approbation or disapprobation is habitually 
expressed in terms that apply only to emotion. It is even 
customary to say " I fed this or that to be right ; " thus bear- 
ing witness to the peculiar connection of the two judgments, 
" It is right for me," and " I ought to do what is right," with 



ETHICS. 309 

the feeling characteristically accompanying the latter form of 
judgment. 

The title " intuitive " — when properly explained — may then 
be applied to the three ideas of the Eight, the Ought, and 
the morally Well-deserving, and to their three correlate and 
contradictory ideas. They signify norms of the moral life, 
implicated in the most primary judgments of every being that 
has arrived at moral self-consciousness. To put forth judg- 
ments conformable to these norms is actually to be a self- 
conscious ethical mind. But in saying this we afford only a 
partial solution of the problem of moral self-consciousness. 
Inquiry must further be made concerning the genesis and 
character of the concrete judgments themselves. For these 
moral ideas are never, as such, intuitively known or envisaged, 
as it were, in immediate self-consciousness. On the contrary, 
no being and no conduct known by sense-perception or self- 
consciousness present the picture of a satisfactory actualiza- 
tion of these ideas. For that reason, in part, they have been 
spoken of as " Ideals " of moral reason. But judgments called 
moral are actual occurrences in the psychical life of moral 
beings. Can they also be pronounced ".intuitive," in any de- 
fensible sense of the word ? 

In answer to this last question philosophical ethics must 
defer to the results of psychological and historical research. 
And in such research the theory of the evolution of moral 
judgment is entitled to have its voice heard. In fact, most 
adults — that is to say, moral beings who have become more 
or less trained experts, as it were, in moral judgment — do 
actually pronounce, according to what appears to be an un- 
reasoned dictum of conscience, some conduct right and other 
conduct wrong. But in fact also, all persons, even the most 
expert in moral judgment, often hesitate as to which of these 
two predicates they shall apply to a given form of conduct. 
And that the greatest variety of equally honest and intelligent 
opinions prevails as to the Tightness or wrongness of many 



310 ETHICS. 

ethical transactions, is too obvious to need argument. The 
more careful student one becomes of the psychical facts, the 
more will one hesitate to say that any of these forms of moral 
judgment do not result from a development. Indeed, the 
doubt is warranted whether the word " intuitive " can, in 
strictness, be applied to the pronouncements of conscience even 
regarding those dispositions of the mind which all theories of 
ethics hold to be of the highest and most essential ethical 
significance. That untrained childish conscience necessarily 
judges it right to choose to tell the truth, to do justice, and to 
love one's fellow, no acute observer will find it easy to believe. 
Indeed, every acute observer will find large multitudes of his 
fellow-adults choosing, almost habitually, to do none of these 
things ; and yet, apparently with a large measure of " good con- 
science" so-called, approbating their choices as morally right 
and obligatory. Who does not know that the vices of lying, 
injustice, and hatred, as habitual dispositions of mind, are 
quite too often covered up by the title of a virtuous fidelity to 
some ecclesiastical, political, or commercial concern ? 

When the discoveries of ethnic and evolutionary and com- 
parative psychology are brought to bear upon this problem, the 
intuitional character of the decisions of conscience becomes 
more difficult to maintain. To lie, particularly if one lies to 
a stranger or to a foe, and to cheat, particularly if it is largely 
and successfully accomplished, has undoubtedly been " right " 
in the sight of multitudes of men in all times. And was it 
not written by them of old time : " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor and hate thy enemy " ? Must it not then be admitted that 
facts are conclusive against the claim which makes intuitive 
any of the moral judgments that concern particular forms of 
conduct ? Are not even those forms of moral disposition, which 
(like the disposition to veracity, to justice, and to benevolence) 
are most indispensable to a rightly constituted moral system, 
the result of a process of development, in the individual and 
in the race? 



ETHICS. 311 

Notwithstanding the facts to which an evolutionary theory 
of ethics successfully appeals, a certain relatively intuitional 
character for the judgments of conscience may still be main- 
tained. We have already seen that the hypothetical judgment, 
" If this is right in conduct, then it ought to be done," is indeed 
absolute and unconditional. Such a judgment states the un- 
alterable and intuitively discerned relation of the moral ideals. 
A certain relatively intuitional character for the concrete judg- 
ments pronounced under these ideas may also be maintained 
as a result of those sesthetical and ethical forces and laws 
which have control of human development. Undoubtedly, the 
entire constitution of government and society among the civi- 
lized peoples of to-day embodies and enforces the current forms 
of ethical judgment. Ethical progress tends away from special 
rights and duties toward those which are recognized as uni- 
versal and necessary. Into this ethical constitution every 
individual is born, as a member of it. In it and by it he is 
trained from the very beginning to the end of life. All the 
experience of the individual impresses upon him the judg- 
ment that certain forms of conduct are right, and therefore 
obligatory, and that certain others are wrong, and therefore 
forbidden. This general training from the larger constitution 
of the society in which the individual lives is made more 
special, concrete, and effective by his immediate education and 
surroundings. Under the principles of heredity and influence 
from environment every member of society will, therefore, be 
predisposed to certain forms of moral judgment and feeling. 
So strongly will these influences operate that the forms of 
judgment and disposition they tend to promote will have their 
paths greatly smoothed for them. In some cases they will 
operate so strongly as to create from the very dawn of moral 
experience a special tendency and a tact to judge, and to judge 
fitly, between the right and the wrong in choice and action. 
In other cases the birth of power to pronounce and to feel the 
right and the wrong of even those things upon which the ethics 



312 ETHICS. 

of advanced and Christian civilization is clearest, will be long 
delayed. In the centres of our civilization at the present hour 
there are " consciences " that do not judge it wrong to lie, to 
steal, and to hate. 

It might be expected that the time and occasion of arrival at 
the stage of a " relative " intuition would be different for the 
different formulas of moral judgment. As a matter of fact this 
is so. It is also a most interesting truth that, in the ethical 
development of the individual, and particularly of the race, 
the first not infrequently becomes the last, and the last first. 
To love one's neighbor, and especially one's enemy, is the last 
of the virtues to be deemed indispensable, in places and among 
peoples of a low condition of moral culture. But in these days, 
among Christian nations, there are many who still doubt 
whether it is wrong sometimes to be a coward and sometimes 
to lie, who would not for a moment admit that one may ever 
with good conscience hate liars and cowards. 

From the point of view now gained we will return to the 
problem of the moral Ideals. Historical and descriptive science, 
under the well-known formulas of evolution, aims at telling us 
how and why men have come to judge and feel thus and so re- 
specting what is right or wrong in disposition and in conduct. 
The success of science has been only partial. The phenomena 
to which it points, and the generalizations which it bases upon 
the phenomena, are sufficient to show, however, that the ethical 
judgments and feelings of mankind are, in general, subject to 
development. But here, as in other cases of evolution, science 
discerns certain tendencies toward fixity of form which reveal 
the norm followed, and the significance of the process. That the 
so-called altruistic virtues are to be seen, slowly and by tortu- 
ous paths, yet surely, climbing into ascendency, we can scarcely 
doubt. The supreme principle of love as the fulfilling of the 
law is plainly destined to be in the future, as it has been in 
the past, more and more clearly recognized. Yet the virtuous 
essence of certain rieht forms of conduct toward self — the 



ETHICS. 313 

so-called " egoistic virtues " — cannot readily be reduced to a 
common statement with that of the altruistic virtues. The con- 
flict between the considerations urged by ancient Stoicism and 
those urged by Epicureanism, on the one hand, and by the self- 
abnegatory side (for it is only one side, albeit the principal side) 
of Christian Ethics, on the other, cannot be settled by an off- 
hand formularizing. Even the supremacy of the principle of 
benevolence is a truth up to which the reason and conscience 
of the most moral have only partially developed. Nor is it 
likely that cases of conflict between the disposition to benevo- 
lence and the demand to do justice or to speak the truth will 
ever cease sometimes to perplex the man of a truly right mind. 
These and all other generalizations as to particular duties and 
obligations, as well as the acceptance by conscience of the 
supremacy of the principle of love, and the power to apply this 
principle, are subjects of ethical development. It is for this 
reason, in part, that the term " Ideals " of moral Reason fitly 
applies to the moral categories. 

The historical and descriptive science of ethics is not com- 
petent to explain the existence or the nature of the moral 
Ideals themselves, by the hypotheses of evolution. To narrate 
by what stages, and under what changes in environment, man- 
kind have come to judge thus and so concerning what they 
ought, is not the same thing as philosophically to explain the 
genesis, with its peculiar nature, of the idea of mankind that 
they ought always and unconditionally to do only what is right. 
The fullest description of the molecular motions which are the 
antecedents of states of sensation, would not of itself account 
for the existence and peculiar nature of these psychical states. 
The most complete story of the arising and combining of sen- 
sations and sensation-complexes would not account for the 
objectivity, for the metaphysical postulate of the reality, which 
" Thinss " have. The consonance and dissonance of mere 
ideas, even if we could approve all the Herbartian mathe- 
matics as correctly formulating these psychical processes, 



314 ETHICS. 

would not render intelligible the first self-conscious sensibility 
of the soul. So the perfectly unique and absolutely incom- 
parable nature of the ideas expressed in the sentence, " This is 
right for me, and therefore I ought to choose it," is made only 
more apparent by all the futile attempts at explanation put 
forth by evolutionary science. Whenever the first self-con- 
scious being — no matter what ape or other animal — had the 
experience of a single judgment expressible in terms of these 
ideas, then ethical experience was born upon the earth. Nor 
can its ancestry be described in terms of other than ethical 
conceptions and feelings. 

The idea of the right as that which ought to be, hovers before 
the minds of men, an indefinite but grand and absolutely wor- 
thy ideal. After it they grope blindly, or reach out with a 
somewhat intelligent vision. It is ever near at hand, but only 
in the shape of some judgment pronounced with a more or less 
definite certainty of conviction that it faithfully corresponds to 
the ideal. This idea is the guiding star of humanity ; but it 
does not remain subject to telescopic measurements in a fixed 
position before the eye of conscience. It exists in some souls 
as a vague stirring of intelligence and conviction respecting the 
rules of conduct. In some it becomes a burning passion. The 
heads and hearts of men are bowed before it, though its mani- 
festation is in forms changeful and hard to define. The ex- 
perience of the entire race — and of the ethically noblest, most 
clearly — seems to affirm : " However much we strive, and 
learn, and pray, we only dimly know what is the right ; but 
our faith never wavers that, whatever it is, it and it alone 
ought, in disposition and conduct, really to be." 

In conjunction with the problems just presented, two others 
require treatment. One of these concerns the content of 
that which is entitled to be called right. The other problem 
may be proposed in the question : Why ought the right to be 
chosen in preference to the wrong ? The principal points of 
philosophical ethics thus evoked can be best discussed by sub- 



ETHICS. 315 

stituting for the term right another term of the same meaning. 
That which we call right is the same as the "morally Good." 
To say that a certain disposition or kind of conduct is right, is 
equivalent to saying that it is morally good. The latter term 
suggests a view which, in our opinion, it is impossible for any 
scientific research or philosophical analysis to overthrow. 
" The Eight " is a species or kind of " the Good ; " but it is a 
unique species, for we must at once qualify the general term 
" good " by an adjective. It is, therefore, not every form of the 
good which can be identified with the right. But when we say 
the right is the morally good, we are only affirming in another 
way : The right is such a good as it is ; it is a unique and 
incomparable kind of good. 

Two distinct classes of opinions — schools in ethical philos- 
ophy — emerge through the attempt to solve the problems just 
propounded. One of these replies to the question, What is the 
peculiar content of all that which is to be called right ? by re- 
garding the morally good as good only for an end lying outside 
of itself. The other regards the morally good as absolute good, 
— good as supreme end in itself. Almost inevitably the first 
of these answers results in a eudeemonistic system of ethics. 
For happiness is the only conceivable end which morally right 
disposition and conduct can serve, if the moral Tightness of dis- 
position and conduct be not itself the end. 

It is difficult, if not impossible, for us to regard the attain- 
ment of mere truth as in itself constituting a supreme end of 
conduct. Accordingly, we do not find systems of ethics based 
on the reasonableness of the maxim : Act so that knowledge of 
what is true may abound, as the ultimate end of conduct. 
Such a maxim would neither guide the moral judgment, nor 
satisfy the moral sentiments, nor express the content of the 
morally good. Neither is it possible to give to the sesthetical 
ideal, to " the Beautiful," the place of an ultimate end, to serve 
which the morally good is but a means. Happiness is then the 
only good which can be a rival of the morally good for the 



316 ETHICS. 

position of the supreme end. The discussion of this problem in 
ethics has thus necessarily to be carried on between the advo- 
cates and the opponents of some eudsemonistic scheme. 

The student of mind who approaches either ancient or current 
ethical controversies with the greatest possible freedom from 
prejudice must be prepared for many sad departures from 
psychological truth and from the results of cautious reflective 
analysis. On the one hand, he will listen to arguments for the 
supremacy of the morally Good, as an end of all conduct, that 
seem to assume the possibility of moral being and moral action 
devoid of necessary connection with any other form of good. 
Doing right is thus essentially resolved into a dreary and mo- 
notonous activity of so-called will, in blind obedience to so- 
called conscience, — and this without regard for consequences 
affecting the happiness of one's self or of other sensitive 
beings. But a being incapable of any form of happiness, and 
existing out of all relation to other beings capable of hap- 
piness, could not be a moral being at all. Action that has 
no effect upon sensitive being, and that tends to produce 
no results in modifying some conscious life, is not conduct at 
all. The sphere of the morally Good cannot be described as 
lying outside of the sphere of that well-being which consists 
in states of sentient souls. This is rather the sphere of the 
non-moral. 

On the other hand, the arguments for Eudsemonism have 
almost habitually been guilty of gross breaches of plain psy- 
chological truths. This charge certainly holds good against 
them so often as they follow the example of their great an- 
tagonist Kant, in maintaining that all happiness is qualitatively 
equivalent, and that different happinesses are to be only 
quantitatively estimated, as more or less. 

The inquiry, What is the content of that which is right ? or, 
What are the essential marks of the morally good ? requires a 
two-fold consideration. We may understand the inquiry to 
mean, What is that disposition of mind which is right ? or, 



ETHICS. 317 

What are the tendency and significance of those forms of con- 
duct which men call right ? The answer to both of these ques- 
tions involves an immediate appeal to experience, — but to 
experience as explicated by the process of reflective analysis. 

The morally right disposition of mind is the subjective moral 
Good ; from the point of view of conscience, it is not only the 
supreme good, but it is the only distinctively moral good. In 
the experience of every man this disposition is that which his 
own conscience approves; it is the disposition, namely, to 
choose and approve what is pronounced right in his moral 
judgment. But the moral judgment of men has been seen 
greatly to vary, to be the subject of a process of development 
in the individual and in the race. Therefore, the disposition 
which different men call right is different in different cases and 
stages and times of ethical development. But never can it be 
said that conscience is in any case, stage, or time indifferent as 
to the character of that disposition which it pronounces morally 
good. On the contrary, there is always required of the " good 
disposition " a certain direction toward ideal forms of conduct, 
and a sufficient intensity and persistence to overcome tendencies 
adverse to such conduct. Judging the real character of this 
morally good disposition by those norms which the morally 
best persons have come to recognize as of universal value and 
obligation, we may say that this disposition is one of affection- 
ate fidelity toward veracity, justice, benevolence, etc. In this 
way we fix to some extent, although rather indefinitely, the 
characteristics common to every disposition of mind which can 
be pronounced morally good. 

But truth, justice, benevolence, and every other commonly 
recognized form of virtuous disposition and conduct, in an 
ethical community of sentient and rational minds, are neces- 
sarily to be regarded as promotive of the well-being of this 
community. This regard is indeed only partially justified by 
any estimates or inductions made upon a basis of actual facts. 
It is in part a moral sentiment ; in part, at least with many 



318 ETHICS. 

men, it is a rational or a religious faith. But however the re- 
sult comes about, the morally good disposition, and the conduct 
which springs from it, are regarded as promotive of the highest 
well-being of those in any way affected by such disposition and 
conduct. May we then say that the essential characteristic of 
the good disposition (the " good will ") is that it is the dispo- 
sition to promote the highest well-being of all beings affected 
by it? 

Should such a general proposition as the foregoing be adopted, 
even in a provisional way, it might at once be seized upon by 
both parties to the conflict. Eudsemonistic ethics identifies 
the highest " well-being " with happiness. It could then claim 
that the foregoing statement necessarily admits of no interpre- 
tation but the one which makes happiness the ultimate end, 
and virtuous disposition and conduct good as means toward this 
end. On the other hand, the opponents of eudsemonistie ethics 
could try to show that " the disposition to promote the well- 
being " of others is benevolence ; and that by making this dis- 
position the essence of subjective moral good we may reduce to 
its ultimate terms the description of the supreme end of moral- 
ity. They could also point out with invincible conclusiveness 
that by identifying unqualifiedly the Good, as happiness, with 
the end sought by conscientious conduct, we rob the ideas of 
the Eight and the Ought of their peculiar significance. For not 
all that is good is also right ; and it is not every form of good 
which I ought to seek for myself or for others. The right — 
they could reiterate — is the morally good. 

The effort more definitely to fix the characteristics of that 
disposition which is morally right leads to the discovery of 
certain perplexing relations between happiness and morality, — 
respecting one's disposition toward one's self and toward others. 
The propositions, "I ought to promote my own highest well-being," 
and, " The disposition to do this is right," would undoubtedly 
be accepted, if properly qualified, by the most thoughtful 
moralists. But the proposition, " I ought to promote my own 



ETHICS. 319 

happiness as the only conceivable form of my highest well- 
being," would undoubtedly be rejected as contrary to sound 
moral principle. So would also the proposition, "I ought to pro- 
mote my own happiness irrespective of the well-being of others." 
On the other hand, the disposition to sacrifice my personal 
happiness to my own higher well-being and to the well-being of 
others is not simply admissible as a morally good disposition ; 
it is even demanded as essential to such a disposition. But the 
disposition to sacrifice the happiness of others to my own well- 
being, in whatever form, would (although not plainly immoral) 
be suspected of immorality. The disposition to sacrifice my 
own happiness except to the end of promoting my own highest 
well-being, or the well-being (including the happiness) of others, 
would also be condemned at the bar of enlightened conscience. 

In regard to myself, and as well in regard to others, I am 
obliged to recognize different kinds of happiness attaching them- 
selves as psychical states to different forms of psychical life. 
Here, too, conscience makes distinctions that, however they may 
have been arrived at through an ethical development, are now 
universally recognized by good men as valid and obligatory. 
The happiness which belongs to the morally good disposition 
appears to moral judgment and moral sensibility as having a 
peerless value. It belongs to the morally good disposition to 
seek and to approbate this happiness. Yet it cannot be said 
that the essential characteristic of this disposition is the desire 
to promote even this kind of happiness as such. Above all, the 
priceless value, the unconditioned worth, of the morally good 
disposition itself is taken for granted in all moral judgment. 
From the point of view of conscience, this disposition is the 
supreme thing in the well-being of all minds. 

It would appear, then, that the essential characteristics of the 
morally good disposition are by no means so few and simple 
as is often supposed. On the contrary, ethical life is extremely 
complex and profound. Its foundations implicate, and its end 
involves, all that enters into the wealth of being attained by a 



320 ETHICS. 

measureless development. If we say that to be good is to have 
the disposition to promote one's own highest well-being and the 
highest well-being of others, we do not thus simplify the 
interpretation of ethical experience as our experience with 
masses of matter is simplified by the statement of the law of 
gravitation. For we are immediately obliged to recognize dif- 
ferent kinds of well-being, or of " the Good " in general. "We 
have also to note that, measured by its own standard, each of 
these kinds may be said to be supreme. Yet we cannot in our 
conceptions follow one of these kinds of the Good without intro- 
ducing considerations from the others. We cannot divorce the 
morally good from all other good, and still conceive of it as good. 
But on the other hand, we cannot reduce the morally good to 
terms of that general good which the Utilitarian chooses to desig- 
nate as happiness. In this connection, there are few more im- 
pressive passages in controversial literature than that in which 
John Stuart Mill declares his opposition to Mansel's fast-and- 
loose method in dealing with ethical conceptions. " I will call no 
being good," says this great advocate of eudeemonistic ethics, "who 
is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow- 
creatures ; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not 
so calling him, to hell I will go." What an invincible and 
noble confidence must that be in the supremacy and uncondi- 
tioned value of the good disposition — even in the very limited 
form of a disposition to veracity — which could evoke such 
honest and manly words as these ! 

In brief, there is evidence in the very nature of the morally 
good disposition that it is not the following of a fixed formula 
which constitutes the essence of subjective morality. It is 
rather the reaching of the soul, always more or less blindly, 
out after an ideal. The definition of this ideal as it realizes 
itself in a disposition of mind is made more and more clearly, 
as moral reason gathers into itself the ripened fruits of all past 
experience. The good disposition is spiritual life, constantly 
organizing itself into higher and more intelligible forms of 



ETHICS. 321 

expression. It points for its ultimate and supreme realization 
to a perfected and systematic ordering of all sentient beings in 
relations that admit of a union of all forms of that which 
is good. 

The second form of the inquiry, What is the content of that 
which is entitled to be called the morally good ? has already been 
virtually answered. It was stated (see p. 317) in the following 
words : What are the tendency and significance of those forms 
of conduct which men call right ? It is in the attempt to an- 
swer this question that Utilitarianism deems itself most suc- 
cessful. Its reply is in substance a brief one : Those forms of 
conduct are right which tend to produce happiness. In the 
effort to justify this reply it has been obliged greatly to expand 
and to modify its original claims. This fact does not, of itself, 
discredit its scientific authority ; for such work of expansion 
and modification belongs to the very nature of advance in all 
scientific knowledge. Eudremonistic ethics must be refuted, 
if refuted at all, in the most subtle and comprehensive of 
its manifestations. 

It must be admitted that there are kinds, as well as amounts 
of happiness, to be distinguished. It must be admitted that 
moral conduct which has nothing to do with the happiness of 
any sentient being is inconceivable. It must be admitted that 
the morality of many courses of conduct is determined by their 
relation to the problem of increasing the happiness, or diminish- 
ing the misery, of mankind. But after all has been admitted, 
the analysis of Utilitarianism is not complete; its claims to 
take into account all the phenomena of an ethical order are 
unjustifiable. 

It is impossible to go further, then, in describing the marks of 
all right conduct, than to say: It is conduct conformable to the 
highest attainable conception of the ethical ideals. This is, of 
course, not a definition of right conduct, if by " definition " we 
mean the reduction of the adjective " right " to some simpler and 
more comprehensible term. It is a description, however, of the 

21 



322 ETHICS. 

character of that norm, as it were, to which all conduct must 
conform in order to be entitled to be called right. An ideal 
condition of society has been found to be the vague but lofty 
end — a condition which shall realize, in their highest terms, 
all the forms of the Good — to which the morally good disposi- 
tion points. Of this ideal condition, the morally good disposi- 
tion is not only a means, but the prime constituent. It is the 
condition recognized by conscience as the worthy supreme end. 
And so all conduct which tends toward the realization of this 
ideal is to be called right. Whatever conduct becomes known 
to reason as necessarily tending toward this end is absolutely 
right, as conduct. But, so far as we distinguish conduct from 
disposition, deeds from character, the Tightness of the former is 
always the rightness of means to an end. 

If utilitarian or evolutionary ethical science cannot solve 
satisfactorily the problems already brought before it by moral 
philosophy, it certainly cannot be expected to furnish an answer 
to those still remaining. Why does the judgment of obligation, 
with feeling of conviction, follow the judgment denning the 
right ? Why ought one to do the right, whenever one knows 
what it is right to do ? To this inquiry no answer is possible 
which does not consist in virtually reaffirming the same essential 
relation in which moral reason necessarily places the ethical 
ideals. This connection of the Eight and the Ought is not one 
which can even be conceived of as the result of a process of 
development. As to what is right, I need to learn. Indeed, on 
this point I must be ever learning. But that what is right in 
disposition and conduct is obligatory, — to be persuaded of this, 
it is only necessary to be a moral being. And the whole essence 
of morality is gone as soon as a separation appears thinkable 
between the right and the ought. Indeed, it may be said that 
no relation between the categories with which metaphysics deals 
is more immediate and peremptory for the human reason than 
that existing between these ethical categories. 

The philosophy of ethics, finally, combines with the philoso- 



ETHICS. 323 

phy of nature and the philosophy of mind to prepare material 
for that supreme synthesis which the philosophy of religion 
seeks to accomplish. What, it inquires, is the relation of these 
ethical ideals to the world of reality ? In calling them " Ideals," 
and in discussing them as such, we have already in part defined 
their relation to the real being of the mind. But is the being 
of things an ethical constitution ? Is the evolution of physical 
reality susceptible of being judged by ethical standards ? And 
especially with reference to history, which implies such large 
reciprocal influence of mind and external nature, what meaning 
can we attach to the attempt to discover in it moral forces and 
moral laws? 

That there are certain tokens of a " power not ourselves " 
which " makes for righteousness," to be found in external nature 
and in man, especially when the evolution of man in history is 
regarded with a due emphasis, we think it possible to maintain. 
But the few remarks upon the existence and interpretation of 
these tokens which it is permitted to make must be reserved for 
another chapter. 



CHAPTER XII 



ESTHETICS. 



IT will add to the effectiveness of the very brief treatment 
which this department of philosophy can receive, if we 
compare its subject-matter with that already treated under the 
head of Ethics. The problems which arise in considering the 
Ideal called " the Beautiful " are similar to those which arise in 
considering the ethical ideals. The distinctions involved in 
the answers to these problems illustrate both the likeness and 
the unlikeness of the two classes of ideals. The Beautiful is 
one form of the Good ; to be and to enjoy that which is beauti- 
ful is to share in the reality of the Good. But, in spite of the 
close alliance which philosophical thinking establishes between 
this form of well-being and the morally good, — both by direct 
comparison and by considering the relations in which the two 
stand to happiness, — no identification of them is possible. 

The relation of the ideal of beauty to the different so-called 
faculties of the soul and to the psychical states ascribed to these 
faculties may be compared with that of the ethical ideals. In 
this way a philosophical theory of the content of the subjectively 
beautiful may base itself upon the science of psychology. The 
apprehension and appreciation of the beautiful is inseparable 
from pleasurable states of sensuous and ideating "intuition." 
Nothing can be regarded as beautiful — the ideal of beauty can 
never be realized — except as it is concretely presented to the 
senses or to the imagination, in pictorial form, for contempla- 
tion ; and unless on being contemplated, it produces that char- 
acteristic form of happiness which we may call sesthetical, within 



^ESTHETICS. 325 

the contemplative mind. The beautiful must he actually agree- 
able, whether its entire essence be held to consist in being 
agreeable, or not. If we speak of the beautiful as an idea, or an 
ideal, we must admit the correctness (though not necessarily 
the completeness) of Hegel's definition of beauty, — " The sen- 
sible manifestation of the idea." Whereas, then, the intuitive 
standard for testing the morally good is by no means the imme- 
diate power of giving pleasure belonging to that to which the 
test is applied, the intuition of beauty can arise in no other 
way than through the experience of the effect of such power. 
That which is intuitively discerned or otherwise known as 
right produces, on contemplating it, a peculiar satisfaction called 
moral. That is beautiful which, on being intuited, produces a 
peculiar satisfaction called cesthetical. 

The immediate connection, in every concrete experience, of 
the agreeable activity of senses and imagination with the in- 
tuition of the beautiful is of great influence upon the princi- 
ples of all art. It is the N aim of art to produce the peculiar 
pleasure which belongs to the appreciation of beauty. Vary- 
ing standards of excellence there are in aesthetics as well as 
in ethics. The principles of true art are tested by an appeal 
to those natures that carry within themselves the highest 
standards of judgment. But the appeal made by the beau- 
tiful object to those choicest and most artistically cultivated 
souls seeks to evoke in them, also, a state of pleasurable appre- 
ciation. And nothing can, by any stretch of courtesy, be called 
"beautiful" which does not only aim at, but also succeed in 
attaining, the production of this state. 

In architecture, for example, the main lines which limit the 
form of the whole, or manifest the related arrangement of the 
parts, must be capable of being traversed by the eye with 
pleasurable ease ; otherwise they violate the principles of beau- 
tiful construction. No part of the structure must be so visi- 
bly lacking in support as to evoke the distressing imagination 
that it may fall. The porch must not be so large as to com- 



326 .ESTHETICS. 

pel the beholder, from the point of view he is expected to 
take, to make the difficult effort to fill out the picture of the 
building it conceals. Colors must not violate the laws of rela- 
tion recognized by physiological optics ; ornamentation must not 
be suggestive of low and disagreeable associations, so that it 
can be called " vulgar " and " loud," or of equally disagreeable 
over-refinement, so that it must be called "finical." Curved 
lines and straight lines must not be brought into such rela- 
tions as that the former will distort or disorder the latter, and 
produce in us a sympathetic pain ; etc. All the arts in the 
same manner, not even excluding poetry, with its relation to 
the art of music, are compelled to observe similar principles, 
dependent upon the pleasurable or painful activity of senses 
and sensuous imagination. 

In judging of the beauty of natural objects we find the same 
direct reference to a standard which measures their power to 
produce, in the very act of being intuitively contemplated, the 
assthetical pleasure. Nor can we except those natural objects 
and phenomena which, by reason of their awful vastness or 
their threatening of human interests, fill the beholder with the 
vague but sweet pain that is characteristic of our appreciation 
for much that we call grand and sublime. This inseparable re- 
lation of the beautiful to the immediate production of a peculiar 
pleasure in the sensitive soul is implied in the most primary 
facts of experience. In an indefinite and preliminary way we 
therefore define " the beautiful " as that which produces in us 
a peculiar kind of pleasurable feeling. The peculiarity of the 
pleasurable feeling produced by beautiful objects cannot be 
defined, but must be known as felt. Nor is this description any 
more indefinite than that we are obliged to give in speaking of 
any form of feeling. Those objects are called beautiful which 
excite this peculiar pleasurable feeling, The pleasurable feel- 
ing of beauty is that which arises in connection with the in- 
tuition of such objects as we call beautiful. This circle in 
definition corresponds to the movement of the mind. 



^ESTHETICS. 327 

But experience enters a protest if we try so to interpret the 
facts as throughout to identify the agreeable and the beautiful. 
Nothing, indeed, can be called beautiful which is not, in so far 
as it is beautiful, aesthetically agreeable. Moreover, the judg- 
ments of men differ as to what should be called beautiful even 
more than they differ concerning the morally good and the 
sensuously pleasant. But of the beautiful — like the morally 
good and unlike the agreeable — we affirm a universal and 
objective value and validity. The agreeable is a state of, or an 
event in, some sentient mind. Its objective correlate consists 
in nothing but a certain peculiar arrangement and mode of 
change of material molecules, both within and without the 
nervous organism of the sentient being which has the agree- 
able feeling. This fact is a matter of scientific knowledge, 
rather than of ideal significance. 

The beautiful is distinguished from the agreeable by the pos- 
session of two characteristics in which the latter is deficient. 
These are objective validity, and ideal worth. By use of these 
terms we designate, in a preliminary way, the most marked 
differences between the beautiful and the agreeable. That 
differences corresponding in some sort to these terms do exist, 
we may confidently appeal to experience to show. We know 
that, strictly speaking, the agreeable exists only as a state in 
us. We believe that the beautiful really exists, in nature, in 
art, in spiritual character and life. Scientific knowledge asserts 
that the objective correlate or cause of the agreeable feeling 
in us is not necessarily something agreeable in that which is 
other than ourselves. On the contrary, aesthetic faith affirms 
that the objective correlate of the peculiar pleasurable feeling 
with which we greet the apprehension of the beautiful is itself 
beautiful. 

Moreover, the conviction is invincible that the beautiful has, 
in some sort, a right to be ; and also that it ought to be appre- 
ciated. The proof for such statements as these is abundant. 
The way in which the old-time saying, De gustibus non dis- 



328 ^ESTHETICS. 

putandicm, must be understood if the interpretation is true 
to the dictates of sesthetical reason, is in proof here. When, 
for example, one contends with one's friend that he ought to 
like olives, or ought not to like onions, the seriousness of one's 
contention is the measure of one's departure from a truly- 
rational procedure. But it requires a stretch of charity that 
seems to carry it beyond reason for one not to feel that the 
failure in one's friend to recognize and admire the beauties 
of nature or of the choicest art witnesses to a defect in his 
rational constitution. To differ about the merely agreeable 
can end only in stating the fact of difference ; and, perhaps, the 
causes (aesthetically indifferent) in the constitution and habits 
of the organism that explain the fact. But dispute about the 
beauty of this or that object, implies an appeal to reasons that 
have an objective and universal application and value. 

It must be admitted, however, that it is difficult, if not im- 
possible, to draw a fixed line of separation between the agree- 
able and the beautiful. This difficulty is partially due to the 
fact that human nature is so thoroughly sesthetical. Indeed, 
the suffusing of all pleasures of sense and imagination with 
the distinctions and estimates of sesthetical reason, must be 
regarded as a chief characteristic of human nature. It is 
more than doubtful whether the idea of beauty, and the pecu- 
liar and pleasurable approbation which the intuition of the 
beautiful evokes, belong to any of the lower animals. The 
phenomena to which evolution points in justifying its use of 
this principle of natural selection prove either too much or 
nothing at all. They prove — if anything regarding the char- 
acteristic idea of, and feeling for, the beautiful — that rela- 
tively brainless birds or even insects have a far higher sesthetical 
development than belongs to the more cultivated classes of the 
human species. It is probably, then, the agreeable, and not 
the beautiful at all, which influences the life of the lower ani- 
mals. But in man's case, regard for the beautiful may become 
so predominating an influence as to suffuse all the life of appe- 



AESTHETICS. 329 

tite and sense. Hence the indulgence of any of the forms 
of gratifying human appetites or desires may come to have an 
sesthetical significance and worth. Man is capable of " eating " 
rather than " feeding ; " of lifting the intercourse of the sexes 
above the level of a bestial pleasure ; of substituting for the 
animal's instinctive washing and plucking, or licking, of hairs 
or feathers, that careful self-adornment which approaches the 
"beauty of holiness." 

Moreover, it should never be forgotten that pleasurable feel- 
ing itself may become an object of sesthetical appreciation. The 
song of birds and the hum of insects are not beautiful simply, 
or chiefly, because as sounds they follow the laws of musical 
art, and produce in the hearer an appreciation of their sesthe- 
tical quality as sounds. They are rather beautiful because they 
lead the imagination at once to depict the joyous psychical 
life which calls them forth. These states of pleasure them- 
selves, imagined to be so innocent and free from care and 
blame, are the beautiful objects. The laughter and carols of 
children are beautiful for the same reason. Undoubtedly a 
large part of our appreciation of the beauty of events in nature 
is due to a similar activity of the imagination. Even our own 
pleasures of gratified appetite and desire we, on reflection, es- 
teem very differently, if they have been, in the having of them, 
touched with true sesthetical qualities. Especially true is this 
of the happiness which actually goes with the morally good 
disposition and its right choice of fitting forms of conduct. 
This form of pleasure (ethical approbation) in ourselves or in 
others, is itself an object of sesthetical appreciation. Morally 
right states of soul, whether contemplated as actual or only 
possible, appear beautiful. To sesthetical reason the agreeable, 
as a condition of the subject of psychical states, may appear as 
also beautiful. 

The relation in which the ideal of beauty stands to the con- 
crete sesthetical judgments of men may also be compared with 
the relation of the moral ideas to ethical judgments. As to 



330 ^ESTHETICS. 

what is beautiful, and as to whether any particular claimant 
for the name- " beautiful " is entitled to receive it or not, there 
is a well known divergence of current opinions. Probably the 
uncertain character of sesthetical standards is far greater than 
that which prevails in the sphere of morals. For this two 
principal reasons are to be assigned ; the two are, however, con- 
nected in the evolution of the human race. The influence of 
unreasoned feeling — of feeling, indeed, for which it is difficult 
or impossible to assign any reasons — is much greater in deter- 
mining the standards of sesthetical than of ethical judgment. 
The majority of men are indeed unable to assign sound rea- 
sons for their judgments respecting much which they pro- 
nounce right or wrong in morals. Even experts in the applica- 
tion of that one standard, " the tendency to promote happiness," 
which Utilitarianism proposes, more frequently than otherwise 
fail strictly to justify all the general rules they propose for the 
control of conduct. Yet on the whole rules of conduct in ethi- 
cal matters are far less dependent upon unreasoning feeling for 
their justification than are rules for judging the beautiful in 
nature or in art. For, in the next place, the important practi- 
cal interests of men may be said to have compelled a more 
forward stage of the race in the formulating of general moral 
judgments. That the unwarranted use of another's signature, 
or the cruel abuse of his person, or the slanderous mention of 
his name, should be promptly and uniformly judged to be 
wrong, may be said to be a necessary of human social devel- 
opment. That certain combinations of colors and lines should 
be in like manner condemned as ugly, may be said to belong 
rather to the luxuries of the race's development. 

Indeed, the relation of judgment and feeling in the contem- 
plation of beauty is such as to prevent an early maturity of the 
former, whether on the part of the individual or of the race. 
We feel that to be obligatory which we judge to be right. We 
judge that to be beautiful which evokes a certain feeling in 
us when we contemplate it. The education of judgment in 



ESTHETICS. 331 

matters of aesthetics can neither begin nor proceed through the 
communication of rules for correct judgment. You may tell me 
that this or that object is beautiful, and assure me that I ought 
to know and feel it to be beautiful ; but if I assent, and say, 
"It is indeed beautiful," when as yet the object has aroused 
in me no pleasurable appreciation of its aesthetical qualities, I 
mean nothing of which aesthetics takes account. I mean some- 
thing different from, and far less than, what you wish me to 
say. The only recognized right standard of judgment in mat- 
ters of aesthetics is, therefore, the pleasurable feeling of appre- 
ciation in those who have most cultivated this feeling. 

Accordingly, we scarcely hesitate to say that the same object, 
whether in nature or in art, may fitly be pronounced beautiful 
or not beautiful according as it does, or does not, arouse aestheti- 
cal feeling in those who behold it from different points of view. 
Such an admission of the indeterminate character of beauty can- 
not be brought under the same category with the uncertainties 
which belong to the judgments of different persons respecting 
some particular form of disposition or of conduct. If a care- 
less, false, or malign disposition, or some form of conduct pro- 
ceeding from such disposition, is judged right by any one, we 
do not admit that the judgment may possibly be a correct judg- 
ment. We do not for a moment think of conceding that to 
him who judges such disposition and its forth-putting right, and 
finds complacency in it ; to him it is right. To the pathologist, 
from his professional point of view, we can yield the right to 
call "beautiful" a preparation of cancerous tissue, or of an 
organ filled with destructive microbes. But to the surgeon 
who indulges the morally wrong disposition, and thereby deter- 
mines his acts in possessing himself of this beautiful object, 
we make no similar concessions. This distinction, which is 
clearly enough made in practice, is doubtless largely due to 
difference in stages in development. It may be possible for 
philosophical analysis to formulate rules, defensible on grounds 
of sesthetical reason, for the determination of our appreciation 



332 ^ESTHETICS. 

of the beautiful. But apparently it is also true that the ra- 
tional relation of eesthetical feeling to the judgment regarding 
what is beautiful is such as to make the latter always depend- 
ent upon the former. 

The relation of the ideal of aesthetics to disposition and to 
choice is also of interest to the student of this branch of philos- 
ophy. The ethical ideal makes a demand for action upon the 
practical reason of man. Each one realizes it in himself as 
best he may by shaping after it his own character and con- 
duct. In respect of this ideal every one is summoned to artis- 
tic endeavor. Something of the same thing is indeed true with 
respect also to the sesthetical ideal. For character and conduct 
that are conformed to the ideal of the morally good are entitled 
to the regard of the beholder as examples also of the ideal of 
beauty. To strive in this manner of artistic endeavor is there- 
fore, indirectly, a matter of moral obligation for every man. 
Nor can the student of life fail to notice the fact that the 
shame at being found ugly, in person as well as behavior, is 
closely akin to a moral feeling. The striving to be, and to pro- 
duce, that which is beautiful may be said, therefore, to appeal 
to our voluntary powers on both ethical and aesthetical grounds. 
Every realization of the ideal of beauty, whether in the form 
of the pleasurable appreciation of what is beautiful in nature, 
art, and spiritual experience, or in the form of that which seems 
plainly fitted to produce such appreciation, is in itself an ob- 
vious increase of the well-being of things and of minds. So 
sure are we of this that we say of the beautiful, as of the mor- 
ally good, it ought in reality to be, and it ought to be admired 
and sought by all rational beings. We feel also a certain sense 
of being wronged, or of disgust that is closely allied to moral 
disapprobation, when we contemplate anything which appears 
ugly and is at the same time regarded as remediable by human 
conduct. Indeed, we feel competent to pass judgment on Nature 
and on Deity with reference to the aesthetical character of the 
objects for which we consider the one or the other responsible. 



^ESTHETICS. 333 

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the voice of beauty conies 
to the soul in the form of a categorical imperative. Indeed, 
whatever hortatory or mandatory character the sesthetical ideal 
possesses appears to belong — in part, at least — to the intricate 
and wonderful relations which it sustains to the ideal of the 
morally good. " The possession of beauty " is a phrase some- 
times employed to describe the end of that impulsive longing 
which the contemplation of beautiful objects arouses within 
the sensitive soul. But the phrase is too figurative strictly to 
define a psychological or philosophical truth. Strictly speak- 
ing, beauty is something which cannot be " possessed," or en- 
joyed as possessed. The sesthetical enjoyment evoked by the 
contemplation of beautiful objects is, indeed, a state in us ; that 
is, it is out state, and so may be said to be a possession of ours. 
The right or opportunity to use the objects for the purpose of 
producing this effect may Be sought and gained or lost ; it is 
a matter of money, of marriage, of proximity, of friendship, 
etc. But these are indirect ways of appealing to choice and 
of influencing conduct. The direct and proper significance of 
the appeal which beauty makes to the voluntary powers of man 
is not a command or an exhortation to choose ; it is rather a 
challenge to admire. The answer to the challenge is the feel- 
ing of admiration. When we experience or fail to experience 
the feeling for beauty, and when we in consequence judge the 
object to be beautiful or to be not beautiful, we know of noth- 
ing to do in consequence of such feeling and judgment, — except 
to seek or to avoid the further contemplation of the object. 

And yet indirectly the feeling for the beautiful is a very pow- 
erful stimulus and guide of human conduct. The attraction of 
natural beauty is one of the secondary and yet potent facts in 
the distribution of the race, and in the determination of the 
times and rates and directions of its development in civiliza- 
tion. The beauty of the morally good disposition, and of those 
forms of conduct which flow from it (especially in the more 
heroic and sublime types of character and action), is a not un- 



334 .. ^ESTHETICS. 

important additional reason for cultivating such a disposition. 
And true art has its impulse in that vague and indefinite but 
passionate longing which follows the suggestions derived from 
contemplation of beautiful objects, and chooses to shape some 
kind of an artistic product for itself. Thus in the realm of dis- 
position and choice the ideal of beauty and the ideal of the 
morally good, without losing themselves in each other, com- 
bine to allure and ennoble mankind. 

It is, however, in its relation to the constructive imagination, 
as guided more or less by rules derived from observation by the 
relating faculty, that the aesthetic ideal is most peculiar. This 
fact has been implied in all that has hitherto been said. It is 
doubtful, indeed, whether the feeling for beauty can be aroused 
by an object which does not set the imagination at work in its 
effort at the synthesis of manifold elements under the unifying 
control of an idea. All sesthetical feeling, except the vaguest 
and lowest, implies that the subject of the feeling is actively 
engaged in constructing the object to which the feeling corre- 
sponds. This is the truth of our meaning when we pronounce 
devoid of "imagination" those in whom the feeling of sesthet- 
ical approbation is not aroused by beautiful objects. In all the 
higher forms of beauty, at least, the imagination of the beholder 
must make beautiful the object which the taste of the beholder 
feels to be beautiful. He who is incapable of the requisite syn- 
thetic activity of imagination, to keep pace with the developing 
glow of sesthetical emotion, is also incapable of " sensing " and 
admiring the object presented. The object to be admired is not 
existent for one thus deficient. In saying this we do not deny 
that single notes or masses of uniform color may awaken a 
genuine sesthetical feeling. On the contrary, we affirm again 
that man is aesthetically distinguished by the whole diameter 
of his being from the other animals by his capacity to give a 
quality and a value to all his sensuous experiences that are 
unknown to them. But it must not be forgotten that the single 
note of common musical speech is really always a " clang," a 



^ESTHETICS. 335 

harmonious whole composed of many psychical elements ; and 
that no color-mass can be perceived as such without the activ- 
ity of the mind, in the orderly synthesis of otherwise discrete 
elements, being called into play. If, however, we should admit 
that the separation of the aesthetical from the sensuously agree- 
able may be made without the activity of the constructive im- 
agination, at least in the case of certain relatively simple and 
low forms of beauty, we could not claim the same admission 
for any of its higher and more complex forms, whether in 
nature or in art. The simplest landscape, or melody, or picture, 
that is to appear beautiful, requires this free movement of the 
constructive imagination. 

The peculiar play of the imagination to which beautiful ob- 
jects appeal is not simply constructive of these objects. It is 
" projective " of the life of the soul affected with the aesthetical 
feeling into the life of the object. The beautiful in any high 
degree, intelligently appreciated, implies a communism of life, 
a sympathy of being between its life and the life of the soul. 
Nothing dead, or conceived of as dead, can appear beautiful to 
the living contemplating mind. Whether the tacit affirmation 
of the imagination, that it correctly represents to itself the life 
of that which is an object, a not-seli, be scientifically and phi- 
losophically defensible, or not, is a question to be settled on 
its own grounds. But as to the meaning of the soul's act in 
making the affirmation there can be no doubt. For this we go 
to the experience of the artist, or of the person appreciating 
the beautiful in nature and in art, for our true account. When 
Emerson asks, — 

"Is it that my opulent soul 
Was mingled from the generous whole ? " 

or when Byron exclaims, — 

" Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part 
Of me and of my soul, as I of them ? " 

we find in the words of each a testimony to the common and 
necessary experience of aesthetical human nature. What we 



336 AESTHETICS. 

cannot, by imagination, project ourselves into as sharing with 
us a common life, that we cannot regard as beautiful : so essen- 
tial is sympathetic activity of the imagination. 

Considerations like the foregoing are, of course, too vague and 
indefinite fully to satisfy the demands of sesthetical science or 
of the philosophy of the beautiful. A certain vagueness must 
be expected in regions where feeling (ordinarily unanalyzed and 
in its very nature difficult or impossible of analysis) holds such 
powerful sway. But even such considerations are not with- 
out philosophical interest and importance. It is a most signif- 
icant fact that, on being brought into the presence of certain 
objects, human nature responds with a peculiar feeling of pleas- 
urable approbation. It cannot be claimed that the approbation 
is given to the objects because they are useful, — not even if 
we extend the meaning of the term "useful" to that utility 
which serves as a means of evoking the pleasurable feeling. 
The candid testimony of all lovers of beauty is that it is the 
" beauty " they admire and enjoy ; it is not the utility of the 
object in producing the joyful admiration which they call its 
beauty. This fact of experience cannot be gainsaid, and should 
not be distorted or overlooked by associational or evolutionary 
theories of aesthetics. 

On the other hand, why we call certain objects rather 
than others beautiful, and with pleasure approbate them as 
such, an examination of the eesthetical phenomena does not 
enable us immediately to tell. "When we are assured by 
some expert in art that we are wrong in our sesthetical 
judgment, we find great difficulty in alleging satisfactory 
reasons for the judgment. It appears to be an irrational out- 
come of a state of feeling, and to express little more than the 
fact of feeling. More careful psychological analysis of the men- 
tal conditions produced by the intuition of the beautiful shows, 
moreover, that this intuition produces strivings, and tendencies 
to action, which are akin to the excitement of the soul in the 
presence of the morally good. But this analysis also shows 



^ESTHETICS. 337 

that a spontaneous constructive activity of the imagination is 
the natural support of sesthetical feeling. This play of the soul 
is awakened by the presence of beauty. It is a joyful and 
beautiful psychical life. And, furthermore, in appreciating all 
beauty, the mind projects its own life of joyful and worthy 
activity into the object appreciated as beautiful. If the object 
be a natural object, the imagination considers the soul-life of 
nature to be revealed, in some form, in the object. The same 
thing is true of every beautiful object of artistic production. 
This sympathetic projection of imagination is then character- 
istic of the activity of the mind in the presence of those objects 
which it calls beautiful. 

Is then that Unity of Reality in which, if at all, the more 
perfect realization of the sesthetical as well as of the moral 
Ideal is to be found, itself a psychical Life ? Is every object, 
called beautiful as the imagined participant in a living com- 
munity — that is, sympathetically imagined as a partner in a 
psychical and ideal totality of existence — actually what it is 
imagined to be ? We are not yet ready to attempt, even by 
way of hypothesis, the completer answer to this question. It 
is, however, a question which the philosophy of aesthetics 
makes inevitable. And to raise it in this definite form requires 
that a further attempt at analyzing the nature of the beautiful 
should be made. 

If sesthetical reason instinctively, as it were, postulates the 
objectivity or reality of the beautiful, it would seem that we 
should be able further to determine this ideal by analyzing the 
nature of those objects which we esteem beautiful. The an- 
alysis of the states of consciousness which such objects evoke 
succeeds, indeed, in only vaguely suggesting certain factors 
assumed to belong to the beautiful in reality. It thus accounts 
for and justifies the mysticism which surrounds all artistic 
endeavor, and which restricts the attempts made by the ad- 
mirers of nature and art to explain the powerful impressions 
which they experience. But the objects themselves have an 

22 



338 - AESTHETICS. 

existence not determined by the states of feeling which they 
call forth. The objects belong to the world of really existent 
beings and events. By examining their common character- 
istics, may we not succeed in dispelling, at least partially, this 
somewhat provoking mysticism ? The history of the science 
of art, and the history of so-called sesthetical philosophy, is 
full of endeavors to solve the problem of the nature of the 
beautiful. The rules for producing what ought to be appre- 
ciated as beautiful, and the principles determined by reflective 
analysis as belonging to whatever really is beautiful, constitute 
two forms of the attempted solution. 

The science belonging to each form of art is, of course, a 
subject of development. But the different forms of art differ 
greatly in their apparent susceptibility to those definite state- 
ments of law at which all science aims. They also differ in 
respect to the stage already reached by the science correspond- 
ing to them. Thus we may arrange the different arts in the 
order of their so-called intellectual character, — meaning by 
this character either the amount of clear conceptions commu- 
nicable by them, or the amount of agreement already reached 
as to the principles of judgment which should rule in them. 
Music, for example, may be called the least intellectual of the 
arts, because it is capable of embodying and conveying the 
least amount of clear conception. It originates and moves 
most effectively in the realm of vague and mystical feeling. 
It is degraded, as music, when it becomes imitative of " things 
according to their external appearance," or of definite forms 
of ideation and thought. But for this very reason in part, it 
is the most " interior " and spiritual of ail the arts, the truest 
representative and artistic stimulus to all degrees and kinds of 
emotional life. 

But judged by the amount of scientific knowledge already 
attained concerning the laws regulating the nature of the 
artistic products which ought to be admired, music is the most 
highly developed and intellectual of all the arts. No other 



^ESTHETICS. 339 

art can more profitably employ the highest culture given to 
the best talent. At the other end of the scale, as respects 
the intellectual nature of the product, stand poetry and the 
dramatic art. Their characteristic mode of expression, in lan- 
guage, compels them to be the medium of more or less definite 
descriptions of the external forms of nature, or of the thoughts 
and purposes as well as of the emotions of men. But the 
science of poetry — considered as a system of defensible rules 
for the construction and estimate of what is aesthetically good 
poetry — is scarcely more mature than that of other less " in- 
tellectual " arts. Yet this " science " has been diligently and 
intelligently cultivated for more than two thousand years. 

In all forms of art we shall find artists themselves indis- 
posed to regard highly the attempts of science to lay down 
rules for either artistic production or for the estimate of beau- 
tiful objects. Even so the artists agree not with one another. 
But how shall " science " exist, except upon a basis of induc- 
tion ? And upon what shall the science of the arts base its 
inductions, if it be not upon such existing products of artistic 
endeavor as do actually produce states of pleasurable sesthetical 
appreciation in the minds of those contemplating them ? How, 
then, shall material for inductive science be secured except by 
securing actual agreement in respect to the experience of this 
appreciation ? 

In every form of art there are certain examples which by 
almost universal consent of those regarding them from appro- 
priate points of view are possessed of this power to awaken 
sesthetical appreciation. These are the acknowledged master- 
pieces in music, architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, and the 
drama. It is to the contemplation of them, and to the analysis 
of their characteristics, that the teachers of art are accustomed 
to direct their pupils, — often in decided and intelligent prefer- 
ence to the mere impartation of ready-made rules. Yet here 
again, when the attempt is made to state the results of this 
analysis as the reasons why, in their judgment, they are com- 



340 .ESTHETICS. 

pelled to call these acknowledged masterpieces beautiful, the 
spirit of the beauty which the masterpieces really possess 
seems to have departed from them. For the best authorities 
and most trustworthy judges of what is really beautiful, and 
therefore ought to awaken the peculiar approbation due to the 
beautiful, even when they agree in the feeling of approbation, 
do not agree in their analyses. 

If every art had its set of universally accepted rules for the 
production and estimate of its own form of the beautiful, it 
would by no means follow that sesthetical science, as estab- 
lished upon an inductive basis, could satisfactorily solve the 
problem of the nature of the beautiful. Every art would, in- 
deed, have its own science. Students of music might then be 
definitely informed what rules determine the characteristics of 
the beautiful in their particular art. Students of architecture, 
sculpture, painting, or poetry might enjoy the same important 
advantage. The teaching of the science of art might then be 
compared, for its scientific character, to the teaching of physics, 
or, at least, of physiology or psychology. But would such a 
state of development of the science of the arts solve our phi- 
losophical problem ? Would it tell us what is that in every 
form of artistic beauty, and also in every beautiful natural 
object, which carries the secret of its beauty. Some music is 
confessedly beautiful ; so also is some architecture, some sculp- 
ture, etc. ; so also are many objects in nature, and certain con- 
ditions of soul. But what is that which is common to them 
all, by virtue of the possession of which we call them all by 
the common term " beautiful " ? It is in this common char- 
acteristic, or common set of characteristics, that we must seek 
and find (if anywhere) the essence of the sesthetical ideal. 

Moreover, an examination of the rules (or so-called science) 
of every form of art shows that in two other respects they 
are found unable to suggest the solution of the philosophical 
problem. They are to a large extent negative only. They tell 
what combinations of tones, lines, colors, words, etc., must be 



ESTHETICS. 341 

avoided in order to escape giving offence to cultivated aestheti- 
cal taste. The difficulty, the impossibility even, of telling 
precisely what combinations shall be made in order to secure 
the approbation of this taste, especially in all the higher forms 
of art, is too obvious to need argument. 

We are far from wishing to underestimate the present at- 
tainments of the critics of the beautiful in art or in nature. 
We would be much more cautious even about speaking dis- 
paragingly of what definite science can do toward training, to 
intelligent judgment and feeling, the practisers, the patrons, 
and the admirers, of every form of art. Let it be admitted 
that a complete set of rules, for the due admiration of the 
natural scenery of any particular region, may at some time 
be formulated by experts and posted in the neighboring inns 
and railroad-stations, for the benefit of travellers aesthetically 
inclined. Let it be admitted that Tyndall is right in suppos- 
ing his aesthetical pleasure in the Alps to have its roots in the 
pleasant gambols of his ape-like ancestors ; and that Grant Allen 
has hit the mark with the high-sounding declaration that all 
aesthetical pleasure is " the subjective concomitant of the normal 
amount of activity, not directly connected with life-serving 
function, in the peripheral end-organs of the cerebro- spinal 
nervous system." With all this admitted, it is hard to see 
wherein the problem of philosophical aesthetics has been made 
clearer or easier of solution. This problem inquires : What 
that is Universal (common to all objects) and Eeal (actually 
existent in the objects) constitutes the essence of the Beautiful ? 

When we consider the treatment which philosophy has ac- 
tually given to the aesthetical Ideal, we are obliged at once to 
admit its indefinite and unsatisfying character. The results 
of reflective analysis attained by none of the so-called systems 
of aesthetics can be said to be beyond reasonable doubt in re- 
spect to important particulars. This is perhaps in part due to 
the fact that the analysis has been imperfect. But it is also 
largely due to the very nature of the subject with which the 



342 - ^ESTHETICS. 

analysis attempts to deal, and to the attempt to explain more 
than it is right even to hope to explain. .That certain combin- 
ations of real elements, in every form representative of life, do 
produce in the human mind emotions of the peculiar kind and 
value which we call sesthetical, is an ultimate fact. If philos- 
ophy can tell what those elements are, and under what rela- 
tions they must combine in order in fact to produce this 
emotion, it has done all that it can expect to do in defining the 
essence of the beautiful. In perception by the senses we find 
that when certain syntheses of sensations, differing in quantity 
and quality, take place, then the knowledge of a real object, 
not-me and having space-form, arises in the mind. Why the 
reality and space-qualities of the object are given in the course 
of development and as the result of certain syntheses of sensa- 
tions, is a question to which descriptive and explanatory science 
furnishes no answer. So, too, it may well be that we can never 
tell why certain combinations of certain factors of real being, 
when perceived, appear beautiful to the perceiving mind. The 
ultimate fact is that objects thus constituted are beautiful. 
They are in fact recognized as representative of the peculiar 
form of well-being which is the sesthetical ideal ; and are 
greeted with the peculiar emotion, to have which belongs to 
the very constitution of sesthetical reason. 

The further task of philosophical aesthetics is set before it 
in the shape of a more satisfactory analysis of the characteris- 
tics of all beautiful objects. A mere sketch of the lines of 
determination which it seems to us necessary to follow must 
for the present suffice. The lines mark out those factors, or 
momenta, which enter into the being of every object that is 
beautiful. The factors cannot, however, be called qualities of 
the object, in so far as their sesthetical character is concerned. 
Moreover, the lines must also mark out the characteristic 
forms, or laws, of combination which the factors have in every 
beautiful object. 

That which is " beautiful " in any object can never be a 



^ESTHETICS. 343 

single element of its being, or a simple quality or state. The 
true artist is indeed fond of regarding simplicity as characteris- 
tic of all genuine art. But the term " simplicity " must here 
be understood in a qualified way ; it is not the synonym for 
what is single and unrelated, but the opposite of what is 
strained, or artificial, or excessively ornate. Change is involved 
as necessary to the characterization of every beautiful object. 
But since the object which is to appear beautiful must always 
present itself in some concrete form, this change belongs to 
the object under the conditions of space and time. The change 
is then recognized as suggestive or representative of movement. 
Nothing that is apprehended as incapable of change, of motion 
in time or space, and so of the successive realization of different 
moments of physical or psychical being, appears beautiful to 
the human mind. But not all movement of physical or psy- 
chical being is beautiful ; the movement which is beautiful 
must have two characteristics. It must have spontaneity, or a 
certain semblance of freedom; and it must use this spontaneity, 
as it were, in self-limitation to an idea. 

Most theories of the nature of the Ideal of aesthetics as 
determined by an analysis of beautiful objects, recognize the 
above-mentioned factors in some form. Change, under the 
conditions of space and time, — movement in the ideal frame- 
work which supports all perception through the senses and all 
representative imagery, — is manifestly essential to the beauty 
of music and of poetry. The same category must be concretely 
recognized in all the objects deemed beautiful, even by those 
forms of art that appear to represent rather what is motionless. 
The beautiful in architecture and sculpture is suggestive of the 
free spontaneity and ideal self-limitation of life in motion. 

The Kantian exhortation for the intuition of the a priori 
character of geometrical forms runs somewhat as follows : Con- 
struct them by mental movement, and then you will know their 
real nature. The exhortation of aesthetics for the intuition of 
the beauty of architectural forms is similar. They must be 



344 . ^ESTHETICS. 

swept by the moving eye, actively constituted by synthetic 
imagination. Only in this way can the outlines of a building, 
or the arrangement in space of the parts within its outlines, be 
intuited as beautiful. Moreover (to anticipate another impor- 
tant consideration), its vertical lines are perceived in their 
beauty as tending " upward " with aspiration, or as resisting 
with dignity and self-poise the " downward " pull of gravity. 
Under the moving eye and active imagination, the horizontal 
lines and portions of the building marshal themselves over 
against one another, on the right or on the left. 

In all sculpture a yet more subtile and highly intellectual 
use of the category of change is necessary to the beauty of the 
object. The particular field of movement here represented is 
that of human or animal life ; although the representation of 
the life of plants is, in an inferior degree, possible for sculpture. 
In order to appear beautiful the sculptured object must suggest, 
either the motion that belongs to life, or the dignified resistance 
of that tendency to motion against the vital interests of which 
external physical forces are the cause. The beautiful statue, 
representing an animal form, stands firmly poised and easily 
resisting gravity ; or else it appears as itself full of vital move- 
ment in response to some emotion of the soul. The intuition 
of the beautiful in the forms of natural objects falls under the 
same principle. 

Much that is said of the freedom of art, as applied to the 
spontaneous play of the artist's feeling and imagination, be- 
longs also to the object produced by his free artistic activity. 
All natural objects, too, when regarded as beautiful, seem to 
partake in the same spontaneous and expressive psychical life. 
The imagination of the beholder must recognize them as, in 
some sort, free beings, active spontaneously and out of their 
own resources rather than as compelled by extraneous force. 
The object which is apprehended as forced by another to change 
cannot, so far as it is regarded as thus forced, be also regarded 
as beautiful. It is indeed true that there is beauty in a painful 



-ESTHETICS. 345 

struggle for noble ends. But the very struggle, although sug- 
gestive of painful emotion in the object, is also suggestive of 
strenuous and self-moved resistance to external forces, in the 
interests of sesthetical or ethical ideals. The form of Laocoon 
reveals only too clearly the frightful agony of his conflict with 
the huge serpents that encircle him ; and we know that the 
conflict will be unavailing. But it also shows us a higher, be- 
cause a human, life contending against a lower life with all its 
resources of muscular and mental energy, in the behalf of an 
end that is morally approved. The supreme and ever-adorable 
examples of the power which such artistic representations have 
to evoke sesthetical feeling, where exulting joy mingles with sym- 
pathetic pain, are the ecce-homo pictures of Jesus. Such beauty 
as they can attain, besides its source in ethical considerations, 
acknowledges the principle for which we are now arguing. 
Spontaneity, whether in active exertion or in the endurance of 
suffering with resignation, belongs to every object which is to 
be intuited as beautiful. 

The philosophical aesthetics of Hegel and his school insists 
upon the presence of some recognizable idea in every beautiful 
object. Theories of the beautiful in general are accustomed to 
note the truth that a unity in variety belongs to the nature 
of the beautiful. If we recur to the results of analysis in the 
chapter upon Metaphysics, we find that these two forms of 
statement imply essentially the same experience regarding all 
reality. The only real unity is obtained by the self-limitation 
of the subject of change, in respect to the series of changes 
through which it passes, by some immanent idea. Now, no 
object, whether a product of artistic effort or a natural product, 
which is regarded as subject to unregulated change, can be 
esteemed beautiful. Indeed, strictly speaking, no such object 
can really exist ; no such assumed being could become an ob- 
ject to the human mind. Chaos is not beautiful, — would not 
be beautiful if it were conceivable. Disorder is not beautiful. 
The beautiful object may, indeed, appear lacking in perfect 



346 - ^ESTHETICS. 

symmetry ; it may appear the more beautiful on account of 
this lack. But this is because the lack itself is expressive of a 
natural and joyous spontaneity of movement; while perfect 
symmetry is liable to appear artificial and forced. Moreover, 
we have already seen that every beautiful object must appear 
capable of varied life ; it falls under the category of change. 
But the change cannot be unlimited change, with no idea or 
end in view. Finality, or the self-limitation of the object ac- 
cording to some idea, appears then to be a necessary factor, 
or " moment," in every beautiful thing. 

A more careful consideration of these characteristics of all 
beautiful objects seems to show that they are such as can be pos- 
sessed — at least in that form and fulness which is necessary to 
awaken sesthetical feeling — only by what has life. Indeed, if we 
were compelled to sum up in a word those characteristics which 
entitle certain things rather than others to be called beautiful, we 
should say: It is their "lifelikeness," their fulness of life. Thus 
does an analysis of the beautiful object lead us around to a con- 
clusion similar to that suggested by an analysis of the state of 
feeling for the beautiful. This state of feeling was found to be 
dependent upon an activity of imagination in projecting psychical 
life into the object contemplated. We now find that, if any ob- 
jects are to be regarded as really beautiful, they must in reality 
possess the characteristics of psychical life. Either, then, the 
beautiful is merely subjective, is only a state of pleasurable feel- 
ing in the mind of the beholder, or else the object contemplated 
and esteemed beautiful is itself possessed of such characteristics 
as entitle it to be called a form of life. The sympathetic com- 
munion of our life with other life is necessary to the appreci- 
ation of the beautiful. If this communion is only a fancy of 
the mind with respect to the object, and if the object is not in 
reality possessed of these characteristics, then we cannot speak 
of the objectively beautiful, whether in nature or in art. 

The foregoing considerations serve to indicate the unique 
nature of the sesthetical Ideal. The feeling for it, and the 



^ESTHETICS. 347 

judgments pronouncing what is entitled to call forth this feel- 
ing, are all relative to the ideal. They are states of mind char- 
acterized by vague and unsatisfied, yet pleasurable, and noble, 
striving after something not yet attained. They are one mode 
of the soul's reaching after a higher and unconditionally worthy 
(an ideal) form of its own life. But this activity of mind im- 
plies its own objective correlate. No particular object, no 
beautiful work of art, or beautiful natural form, or beautiful 
state of the self-conscious mind, represents this ideal with a 
complete satisfaction of the demands of aesthetical feeling. And 
yet every object is deemed beautiful only on the mind's as- 
sumption that it shares, in some worthy degree, the character- 
istics of its own ideal striving and satisfaction in such striving. 
Every form of life that appears as a free and self-controlled 
approximation to its own idea appears, so far forth, to be beauti- 
ful. But the degrees of approximation are infinitely various ; 
the life attained is not all alike worthy in the estimate of the 
contemplating mind. The noblest, fullest life — if we could 
only perfectly describe it — would correspond to the Ideal. If 
such life exists in reality, then the perfectly beautiful, the 
ideally beautiful, exists. But the shadowy outline of such a life 
hovers above the mind, alluring it. The objects that seem to 
have more or less of such life appear in their several degrees 
to be beautiful. The mind that experiences this life responsive 
to the contemplation of such objects realizes the feeling for the 
beautiful. And above it and them, as a Somewhat or Some 
One, that may serve as a goal of all the striving, is placed the 
Idea of the Beautiful realized, — the Being that experiences, and 
is, the perfection of all Life. 

It is only in some such confessedly vague way that philo- 
sophical aesthetics can at present explicate the content of human 
experience with the beautiful. That sesthetical, like ethical, 
reason is in a course of progressive realization of its ideal, we 
have every reason to believe. 

The different forms of the beautiful, as ordinarily recognized 



348 ^ESTHETICS. 

by the language of art, are connected with the different com- 
binations of those characteristics which are common to all 
beautiful objects. When we intuit forms of change, in corre- 
spondence with some ideal, that are rapid and imply easy 
adaptation to environment, we have the sesthetical feeling be- 
longing to the graceful in art or nature. When we contemplate 
what is measureless and vague in outline, in impression of 
strength, what can be attained only by vast exertion, we are 
stirred to the feeling for the sublime. The grand, the charm- 
ing, the stately, the piquant, etc., are forms of beauty, the 
analysis of which leads to similar results. 

The fact that a very large proportion of the objects which 
appear beautiful owe their beauty to association is doubtless 
of great scientific and practical significance. But it is a fact 
which enables us neither to find the essence of the feeling for 
the beautiful in the laws of association, nor to reduce to sim- 
pler terms the real characteristics which belong to all beautiful 
objects. All states of mind fall, as a matter of course, under 
these laws. Yet the nature of human reason and the reality of 
things and of minds are not explained by the statement of the 
regular forms of the recurrence of particular ideas. This is as 
true in aesthetics as it is in ethics, or even in metaphysics. 

An intimate and interesting relation has been found to exist 
in experience between the ideal of beauty and the ideal of the 
morally good. The morally good disposition is naturally re- 
garded as beautiful. But we can say this only on the sup- 
position that we do not accept notions current in certain ethical 
systems as to what the morally good disposition really is. That 
the beautiful is naturally and necessarily regarded as also "mor- 
ally good, we are forbidden to say. Yet the feeling that all 
beauty ought to he united with moral goodness, is strongly 
intrenched within the human mind. The contemplation of 
beautiful objects, with a genuine sesthetical feeling, is also 
ethically purifying. Important psychological reasons may be 
given for this fact, among which are the following : Such 



^ESTHETICS. 349 

feeling is opposed to, and exclusive of, the domination of appe- 
tite, avarice, and all the lower forms of desire. It is in fact 
essentially iwiselfish, — the admiration and love of the beauti- 
ful being as unlike the seeking and love of self as are the love 
of truth, of justice, or that love which we call benevolence. 
It may be said to have the characteristics of altruism, or of 
" otherworldliness." There was, therefore, important philosoph- 
ical truth concealed in the phrase peculiar to the Platonic, and 
indeed to the entire Greek, way of thinking, which united 
with the copulative the beautiful anil the good (to koKov k 
ayaOov). In the present development of morality, and under 
the present conditions of human living, it will not do so to 
press this kinship as to annihilate ethical distinctions. In cases 
of practical conflict between men's notions of what is, aestheti- 
cally considered, beautiful and what it is agreed by the great 
majority to call morally right, the latter must inevitably pre- 
vail. The evolution of judgment in ethics is further advanced, 
and has reached a stage of consistency and rationality that is 
quite beyond anything which the science of aesthetics can show. 
Society, with its daily life and conduct, builds itself solidly on 
a moral code that has been wrung from powers of darkness and 
superstition by centuries of hardship and strife. But the code 
of artistic feeling and judgment is yet an airy and somewhat 
evanescent affair. It has not the toughness of fibre necessary 
to contend with conceptions and judgments which are so clear 
and prompt in most men's minds that they seem to merit, and 
do widely receive, the title of " universal and necessary truths." 
If, however, the really beautiful and the really good were found 
to be incompatible, an important and influential schism in rea- 
son would have to be confessed. From the confession we are 
doubtless permanently safe, when we consider that both the 
really beautiful and the really good appear, to the mind, in 
their highest and ultimate form, as Ideals. The confession 
which the two ideals, when compared, elicit, is not one of their 
incompatibility in reality. It is rather itself a tendency of the 



350 ^ESTHETICS. 

human mind to insist that, somehow and somewhere, the two 
shall be perfectly realized in one state of being, in one most 
beautiful and most righteous form of Life. To be sure, every 
definite and concrete object of which we have experience falls 
far short of effecting the desired unity. Neither do we find the 
perfect and ideal happiness of which we have also a mental 
picture associated with everything — or, indeed, with any one 
thing — which we call beautiful or morally good. But beauty 
and the morally good disposition, nevertheless, appear to us 
forms of well-being that have an absolute significance and value. 
And from this point of view we turn again to that Unity of 
Eeality in which the philosophy of nature and of mind dis- 
cover the " Ground " of all things and of all souls, and inquire 
whether we may not at least cherish the fair and reasonable 
postulate that it is also the Eealization of the ethical and the 
sesthetical Ideals. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



NOTHING is more impressive to the thoughtful student of 
human nature than the existence of certain conceptions, 
emotions, and beliefs of that peculiar character which we call 
"religion." The attempt to reduce the religious elements of 
man's being to a very few elementary forms is, in our judgment, 
a complete failure. The sources of religion in human nature are 
both varied and profound. Eeligion, says Herbart, 1 " is much 
older than philosophy, and strikes its roots much deeper in the 
human soul." That philosophy is older and more deeply rooted 
in human nature than is science, we have also seen to be true. 
If then we arrange the forms of intellectual striving which re- 
sult in religion, philosophy, and science, in the order of the 
support which they receive from the constitutional needs of 
humanity, we must place science last of the three. But it is 
religion as a life, with its more or less naive and uncritical con- 
ceptions, and with many unjustifiable beliefs, that has outlasted 
all the changes of opinion to which the philosophy of religion 
has been subject. No fear need be entertained that it will be 
unable to survive the modern effort to bring its phenomena 
under so-called scientific treatment. 

The general relation between philosophy and the particular 
sciences was found to be such as to encourage the expectation 
that the philosophy of religion might, in a measure, place itself 
upon a secure scientific foundation. It is doubtful, however, 
whether a science of religion, in any such form as to serve 

1 Einleitung in die Philosophie, 5th ed., § 155. 



352 - PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

philosophy for a teacher and guide, can be said to exist. All 
efforts hitherto made to subject the nature and growth of the 
complex life of religion to a descriptive and evolutionary treat- 
ment have been sadly lacking in scientific quality. Such efforts 
are even less hopeful in prospective result than are the attempts 
at a physiological and evolutionary science of ethics or aesthet- 
ics. It is necessary then for philosophy to go straightway — 
in its own name and with its own authority — to those sources 
which lie within the facts of human life. Within the sphere of 
religion there exists no body of principles, established by care- 
ful scientific induction, on which philosophy can safely rely. Its 
reflective analysis and its efforts at synthesis derive little bene- 
fit indeed by stopping to consult the modern theories concern- 
ing the origin and growth of religious beliefs. The facts upon 
which these theories claim to have established themselves must, 
of course, enter into its account. But it is only as considered 
in connection with a great number of other even more impor- 
tant facts (usually quite neglected by the ardent defenders of 
an inductive and objective science of religion) that their signifi- 
cance for philosophy can be realized. 

It is for this reason, in part, that philosophy comes into such 
very close relations with religion. Within the sphere common 
to both there is no recognized standard of defensible generaliza- 
tions to which, in case of conflict between the philosopher and 
the man of the popular religious faith, an appeal can be taken. 
A genuine science of religion (corresponding to the science of 
physics or the science of psychology) does not exist. Did it 
exist, it would constitute such a recognized standard of appeal. 

But it may be said that a science of theology exists, and that 
this science must be accepted as the arbiter between popular 
belief and philosophical thought respecting matters of fact and 
law in religion. Has, then, theology so succeeded in giving sci- 
entific form and certification to the phenomena of religious belief 
and knowledge that it can — as can physics or psychology — 
require of philosophy to accept at its hands a body of princi- 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 353 

pies, not simply presupposed by it, but also ascertained by its 
inductive researches ? The word " theology " is variously used. 
Sometimes it signifies little more than the iteration, in more 
technical and uncouth phrase, of the popular conceptions and 
beliefs respecting religion. But it cannot retain the claim to a 
scientific character when, through fear of being accused of 
rationalism, it does not itself lay hold upon and employ the 
method of reason, — the method of philosophy. In so far as 
theology actually employs philosophic method, it becomes a 
philosophy of religion. And, in fact, by far the greater part of 
what has been called the science of theology is actually philoso- 
phy of religion, though the method of reflective analysis and 
rational synthesis be used in a vacillating and inconsistent 
way. 

The science of theology has, without doubt, a high place 
among the forms of systematic and certified human knowledge. 
As a science, and not as a dogmatic restatement of popular 
beliefs or a fragmentary attempt at the philosophy of religion, 
theology moves in a narrow and restricted sphere. It is the 
critical and systematic exposition of the particular tenets held 
by a sect or branch of believers in some more or less definite 
form of religious faith and life. It is Calvinistic or Arminian ; 
it is the Dogmatik of the Lutheran Church or of the Eeformed 
Churches ; it is the theology of the Westminster Confession or 
of the Thirty-nine Articles ; or it is the so-called New England 
Theology. Each of these forms of scientific theology may fur- 
nish the philosophy of religion with new material for its con- 
sideration. But by the very nature of that definiteness which 
they have as partially exclusive systems, none of them is a 
science of religion fit to be the judge over, or sole guide of, the 
philosophy of religion. In so far as they involve common ele- 
ments, they show the wide-spreading character of the concep- 
tions and beliefs with which they attempt to deal. In so far, 
however, as they subject these conceptions and beliefs to thor- 
ough reflective analysis, and build upon the results of this 

23 



354 PHILOSOPHY OF KELIGION. 

analysis that common supreme synthesis which all religion 
implies, they share together in a common philosophy of 
religion. 

It may be claimed, however, that the method by which the- 
ology arrives at its truths is so peculiar as to place it above 
philosophy in the position of authority or supreme judge. The 
" device," Philosophia est ancilla theologice, prevailed during the 
Middle Ages; it is still accepted and acted upon by many 
thinkers in the Eoman Catholic Church and in other great 
branches of religious belief. But it is the characteristic achieve- 
ment and priceless possession of modern philosophy to have 
gained freedom from the power signified by this device. In- 
deed, the device itself is a denial of one of the chief character- 
istics of all philosophy. It cannot be the " handmaid " of 
theology; to resume this position would be to surrender the 
birthright and title of modern philosophy. Neither has the- 
ology suffered from losing her handmaid. 

If, then, the theologian wishes to enter the fields of philoso- 
phy, he is heartily welcome therein ; but only on terms consist- 
ent with the laws of the domain. If he do not become a 
philosopher, if he do not diligently and intelligently cultivate 
the knowledge of mind, the knowledge of knowledge, the knowl- 
edge of moral philosophy, and the philosophy of religion, he 
will scarcely attain the place of a trustworthy theologian. But 
he cannot change the nature or the methods of philosophy by 
his bare presence in its field. 

The existence of various claimants to the privileged place of 
revealed systems of religious truth, and the existence of some 
one form of revelation recognized as special and unique, do not 
change the nature of the relation between religion and philoso- 
phy. All the several claimants must appear before the bar of 
reason and present the grounds on which their claims rest. 
And if the alleged truths revealed by each have been previously 
given the form of theological science, whether in a critical or 
in an uncritical way, this science can contest conflicting claims 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 355 

before no other arbiter and judge than philosophy itself. More- 
over, even when any particular form of revelation has been 
acknowledged to be true, this does not do away with the neces- 
sity of a philosophy of religion, or even greatly abridge the 
work it has to perform. The existence and the recognition of 
revelation are themselves religious phenomena, which imply 
most important truths with regard to the nature and connec- 
tion of all reality and of the supreme ethical and aesthetical 
ideals. A revelation which should contradict the truths im- 
plicated in all knowledge, and in the particular principles rec- 
ognized by the sciences of nature and of mind, of ethics and 
aesthetics, is unthinkable. Of what could it be a revelation ? 
To whom could it be a revelation ? What could it reveal ? 
Any intelligible answer to these questions is quite impossible 
without admitting the right and the duty of philosophy to deal 
with all the phenomena of religious conceptions and beliefs. 
It is only a philosophy which takes a shallow view of experi- 
ence and reality that refuses to consider alleged facts and prin- 
ciples that are too vague and vast for clear definition, — tokens 
of the feeling of the human heart after remote and ever unat- 
tainable ideals. On the other hand, it is only a philosophy 
which has parted with its crown and birthright that will 
receive any alleged mysteries of faith when presented in terms 
that defy and flout at the clearest ideas and choicest convic- 
tions of reason. 

All rational knowledge is suffused with conviction ; and the 
influence of the ideals of the morally good and the beautiful is 
known in the awakening of the feelings of aspiration, awe, 
admiration, and affection. That " faith " and " feeling " should 
enter into the very essence of the life of religion, need cause no 
wonder and give no offence. Neither philosophy nor science 
succeeds in fully satisfying the mind's demand for explanation. 
And some of the mind's most imperative demands are not satis- 
fied by explanation at all. But the faith which religion requires 
must be of a kind to comport with the knowledge which sci- 



356 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

ence and philosophy furnish, although this is a far different 
thing from saying that science and philosophy must furnish an 
explanation of the objects to which the faith points, or else 
deny the rationality of the faith itself. Conviction, that arises 
we know not how, attaches itself to all the objects of knowl- 
edge. The faith which is inseparable from religion is not a 
blind and arbitrary defining of the object of religion. As far as 
it approximates this condition, whether in the mind of individ- 
uals or in particular systems of theology, it is unreasonable, 
and cannot abide. As a conviction of the presence and power 
of the ideal within the real, — in that particular form which 
is required not only for the life of dutiful and beautiful con- 
duct, but also for the life of religious devotion and bless- 
edness, — faith is not contradictory of, but akin to, the 
most primary, invincible, and valuable activities of reason 
itself. 

A true philosophy can, therefore, never contravene or mar 
the life of true religion. Philosophy strives rather, with keen, 
loving insight to discern, and with tenderness and sympathy to 
appreciate, the significance and value of this life. It regards 
religion as a witness to the ultimate Unity of the Eeal and the 
Ideal. And if science, falsely so-called, wounds religion, or spurs 
on philosophy to wound her, the cure of the wounds is no more 
to be found in irrational religious zeal and belief than in irre- 
ligious science and philosophy. The only cure for all such 
wounds is more of knowledge, — of knowledge, with its blending 
of intuition and inference with primary convictions of truth. 
As said the great theologian, Julius Miiller : " Wounds which 
have been inflicted on humanity by knowledge, can be healed 
only by knowledge." 

In case of an apparent conflict between the two, religion has 
great and obvious advantages over philosophy. By that per- 
sistent faithfulness in conviction and devotion toward an Ideal, 
which is her essential characteristic, she can ultimately compel 
the respectful consideration of philosophy ; while her grasp 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 357 

upon life and conduct among the multitudes of mankind, and 
even with the leaders of reflective thought, is by far the more 
firm and unmistakable. The facts of experience to which she 
invites philosophical analysis, and the contributions made to 
the final synthesis of philosophy by the principles implicated in 
the experience, are of the most enduring character. Moreover, 
they make the irresistible appeal which comes from objects that 
awaken the strongest and profoundest passions and emotions of 
human nature. For all the roots of our physical and psychical 
life are bathed in the hopes, aspirations, fears, and yearnings 
which are fed from the springs of religion. 

A recent writer 1 on a branch of this subject raises the ques- 
tion, Which of several tenable but rival theories to account for 
our actual experiences is to be believed ; and then makes 
answer as follows : " That will be most generally believed 
which, besides offering us objects able to account satisfactorily 
(for our sensible experience, also offers those which are most 
interesting, those which appeal most urgently to our aesthetic, 
emotional, and active needs." No one wise in reflective think- 
ing, amTihTIheliistory of such thinking, can fail to sympathize 
with the words of Mr. Shadworth Hodgson : 2 " Eeligion I saw 
was like an expansive force which would shatter any man-made 
system of philosophy, unless that system were a true image of 
the universe itself. Nothing can be true which does not find a 
place, in the theory, for that passionate determination of the 
mind to God, which I do not say is described by, but which 
breathes from, the writings of men like Coleridge. And the 
reason is this, that the passionate religious tendency is not a 
sentiment fluttering round a fancy, but is a feeling rooted deep 
in the structure and mechanism of consciousness." 

Those facts entering into all the life and growth of mind, out 
of which the life of religion perennially springs and by nourish- 

1 Prof. Wm. James, on the "Psychology of Belief," in Mind, July, 1889, 
p. 346. 

2 Philosophy of Keflection, vol. i., Preface, p. 20 f. 



\ 



358 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

ment from which it grows, may be mentioned under five heads. 
These are, — 

1. Certain vague but powerful feelings which impel the mind 
to belief in the presence of the invisible and to the inquiry as 
to right relations toward this presence. Among these is the 
feeling of dependence which, as absolute and equivalent to a 
consciousness of being in relation to God, Schleiermacher con- 
sidered the source of all religious life. This feeling, under the 
influence of intelligence, develops from the primitive fear of 
unknown forces that are beyond man's control, into the rational 
belief in Providence as " other " Being than the beings we 
immediately know, which shapes both our ends and theirs. 
Eeligious rites and ceremonies, as well as the rational conduct 
of life, arise from the pressure of this motive to stand right with 
the invisible " other " Being. 

2. The higher and more distinctively ethical feelings and 
ideas furnish also a principal source of religion. This state- 
ment must be accepted as matter of fact, whatever theory may 
be held as to the possibility of separating the sanctions and 
rules of ethics from the tenets of religious belief. In fact, the 
feeling and idea of moral obligation, the fear of retribution and 
the expectation of reward, are experiences of the human mind 
which impel it to the belief in the object of all religion. The 
peculiar objectivity, the " otherworldliness," of the so-called 
" voice of conscience " has been recognized in connection with 
all degrees of ethical development. Who, or what, that is with- 
in me and yet does not appear to be myself, speaks to me and 
declares, " Thou oughtest," or " Thou oughtest not " ? The 
theological argument which, from the wr-equity of rewards and 
punishments as empirically determined, infers the existence of 
a Being who will right this m-equity, may not be acceptable to 
the mind of the present age. But that the expectations which 
are actually awakened in the ethical consciousness are most 
powerful factors in the impulse of human nature toward God, 
it would argue inaccurate observation of the facts to deny. In 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 359 

their more intelligent form, these ethical experiences suggest 
and guide that inquiry after some certified relation of the real 
world of beings, forces, and events, with the ethical Ideal, which 
has always been the most painful and burdensome of all philo- 
sophical problems. The sense of justice and truth, the feeling 
that goodness and the well-being it brings ought to exist in 
reality, the persistent conviction that the kingdom of reality 
cannot (in spite of all appearances to the contrary) be a region 
of moral negations, much less a kingdom where evil is supreme, 
have driven men to faith in God during all the dark ages of 
the world's history. 

3. The higher and more distinctively sesthetical feelings and 
ideas are also a powerful motive to religion. It is not without 
reason that the advocates of a world without God strive to 
diminish the value of sesthetical feeling and the amount of 
beauty, as distinct from mere utility, to be found in the objects 
of human experience. In its most vague and primitive form 
the susceptibility to sesthetical influences is akin to the suscep- 
tibility to religion. It has been the " beauty of holiness," quite 
as much as its utility, which has attracted the minds of men. 
Without this susceptibility it is difficult to tell what the forms 
of divine service would have been. Many, perhaps most, of 
those religious ceremonies which prevail among the lowest 
peoples are lacking in qualities which appeal to our sesthetical 
feeling ; some of them are positively, and in a high degree, 
repulsive to a refined taste. The beliefs of religion, too, have 
been too largely shaped by crude ethical conceptions, to the 
damage of the eesthetical quality they might otherwise have 
possessed. It is customary to inveigh loudly against certain 
religious practices and beliefs, in the name of aesthetics as well 
as of ethics. But the sympathetic student of human nature 
will recognize, here as everywhere in religious phenomena, 
another aspect. He will be ready in the consideration of this 
subject to give the principle of evolution all its rights. The 
science that can call the hideousness of a cancer "beautiful," 



360 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

surely might enable us to see how the Aztec priest, who lifted 
the bleeding heart of the victim to his idol's mouth, was still an 
sesthetical as well as a religious being. In the Eoman Catholic 
Church the beauty which untutored minds have seen speaking 
from the face and form of the Madonna and her Child, has 
allured them toward the divine life. And all the growth of devo- 
tion to mere fact and law which modern science demands does 
not serve to quench the rational conviction that what is grandest 
and most beautiful in ideal must be realized in the Universe as 
the object of all religion. 

4. What we will call " the metaphysical impulse," in even its 
most instinctive and least rational form, serves in the interests 
of religion. As the otherwise unknown cause of the perpetually 
recurrent groupings of experiences this impulse posits a Being 
actually existent in the world of reality. We may call that 
which it posits by the name X, for ought we know about it to 
be gathered from such terms as " substratum" " substance," etc. 
But no " Thing " exists without this X ; and there is no knowl- 
edge of any " Thing " until this metaphysical impulse has done 
its work. Science proceeds to differentiate its experiences under 
the more or less intelligent rule of this same impulse. The 
world of psychical states, as instinctively and necessarily organ- 
ized into its two great classes and assigned to its two kinds of 
subjects (things and self), science underlays with a world of 
postulated realities, called " atoms," " forces," " principles," and 
" laws." Thus it arrives at a comprehensive and defensible con- 
ception of the unity of the world. But the man who knows 
no science is not without some vague conception of a unity in 
reality to all that of which he has experience. Even in the 
lowest forms of religion the multiplication of gods many and 
lords many has not been wholly unlimited. In fetichism and 
the most debased polytheism there are fewer deities than there 
are things and men. The divinity serves as some kind of a prin- 
ciple of unification, as a bond in reality of many things and many 
men. It is this metaphysical impulse in which we find a source 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 3d 

of religion. Were man not metaphysical, he would not be reli- 
gious. There is no religion without the sense and belief of reality. 

5. In its highest form the foregoing impulse becomes a demand, 
definitely conceived and more or less completely accomplished, 
for the unifying of all experience in some known or postulated 
Unity of Beality. But the instinctive impulse must be quick- 
ened and broadened by a many-sided experience, as well as 
guided by the principles of the particular sciences, in order to 
attain this, its highest form. It is this form of the impulse 
toward God which conceives the demand for Him as expressive 
of the most profound, varied, and lofty life of reason itself. 
The truth which Tolstoi makes one of his characters utter must 
be so interpreted : " It is not the mind that understands God, 
it is life that makes us understand Him." 

The intimate relation of philosophy and religion is thus seen 
to have its ground in the very nature of reason itself. Philoso- 
phy aims, by reflection upon all the many-sided forms of its 
own life, to comprehend that which religion accepts as con- 
cretely imaged and set before the mind. Beligion includes the 
direction of conduct with reference to the relations in which 
the object of religious faith is depicted as standing to the indi- 
vidual mind and to the world of things. It regards the laws of 
conduct as emanating from the will of this object; the mind 
is therefore regarded as determined to character and conduct by 
the expression of this will. Beligion therefore regards those acts 
as obedience or disobedience, pleasing or displeasing, to Deity, 
which ethics regards simply as in accordance with, or in vio- 
lation of, impersonal laws. It considers the course of events in 
the physical universe as, in some degree and manner at least, 
a manifestation of the presence and attributes of the object of 
its faith, and of its affection or fear. It considers rational souls 
as capable of existing, and indeed as actually existing, in rela- 
tions with this object which imply a community of nature and 
interests between the two. 1 

1 Comp. Lotze, Outlines of the Philosophy of Eeligion, 2d ed., § 80. 



362 . PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

Philosophy feels the obligation to treat in its own method 
the phenomena of the life of religion. As it collates and re- 
flectively considers these phenomena, it notes that they bear 
witness to an origin in the same sources as those in which it 
finds its own impulse and guiding principles. To the vague 
feeling of dependence in which, in part, religion originates, it 
attempts to furnish such grounds in a knowledge of the Nature 
of all Thought and all Being as shall convert it into a principle 
of rational life. It shows that it is true, and how it is true, of 
man, as of all other known or knowable beings, " In Him we 
. . . have our being." In brief, it justifies to reflective thinking 
the. feeling of absolute dependence which the life of religion 
instinctively cultivates. 

The vague feeling after a unity in reality between the different 
beings of the physical world, and between us and these beings, 
with the forces and laws which we primarily know as concerning 
them, it also makes the subject of reflective thinking. It thus 
undertakes, in a critical and thorough manner, to construct — 
as it were — " the metaphysical core " of that conception to 
which reason is entitled in answer to its own demands. It 
summons all the sciences which describe the nature of the 
world and the nature of men, as realities concretely determined 
in human knowledge, to show that our manifold experience 
implies, in reality, a Unity of Being. 

The philosophy of religion further undertakes to show, in the 
name of the particular sciences, what is the nature of this 
ultimate Unity of all real Being, and what are the more definite 
relations in which this Being stands to the being of man. In 
attempting this stupendous problem it is obliged to take account 
of those facts of sesthetical and ethical life with which religion is 
also in the closest connection. What religion vaguely believes 
and yet faithfully feels, philosophy strives to make a matter of 
certified knowledge, with reference to the character of the 
eesthetical and ethical ideals. The supreme synthesis at which 
it aims requires that — if it be possible in accordance with all 



\r" 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 363 

the facts and with the principles ascertained by the particular 
sciences — these ideals of reason shall be regarded as having 
their realization also in that same Unity of all Eeality, in 
which the particular beings, called things or minds, have their 
" Ground." 

This brief analysis of the relations which exist between re- 
ligion and philosophy is the rational justification of the facts of 
history. In history, philosophy and the life of religion have 
always been intimately connected. To say that the historical 
connection of theology and philosophy has always been one of 
intimate interdependence is scarcely more than to say the same 
thing in another way. Eeligion as a faith and life cannot bear 
to be shown to be irrational. But philosophy too is not thor- 
oughly and consistently rational unless it take — with all the 
high value which they certainly possess — the facts and prin- 
ciples of religious faith and religious life into its final view of 
the universe. 

The claims of the philosophy of religion are therefore some- 
what unique. They are not based simply on the existence of 
certain persistent and special phenomena, called the beliefs and 
life of religion. They are also based on the fact that its own 
existence has its roots largely in the same metaphysical, ethical, 
and sesthetical demands as those which religion supplies. Ee- 
ligion believes in, and worships, and shapes conduct with 
reference to, a certain Ideal-Eeal. The nature of the Ideal 
of religion is such that, if the existence of a corresponding 

it 

Eeality be even once admitted as an hypothesis, it changes 
materially our points of view from which to regard all the chief 
philosophical problems. ^r" 

The first problem of the philosophy of religion is to deter- 
mine the reality and predicates of that Being whom, under the 
imagery derived from its experience with human personality, * k 
religion believes in and worships as God. In fidelity to the in- 
terests of this problem the so-called " arguments " for the being 
of God must be handled critically. Will that presupposition- 



3G4 < PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

less reflection which philosophy requires justify the claim of 
these arguments to constitute a proof? The answer to this 
question requires the making of distinctions, some of which are 
quite too apt to be overlooked. Of proofs for the being of 
God, in the sense of mathematical or other forms of strictly de- 
ductive demonstration, we cannot properly speak in this con- 
nection. All such demonstration proceeds syllogistically from 
acknowledged principles to particular applications of principles, 
either singly or in combination. Its type is the mathematical 
argument as employed in the Euclidean geometry. But if God 
is, His being is a matter of fact ; and the demonstration of mat- 
ters of fact can follow only from general statements, or prin- 
ciples, expressive of matters of fact. The only principle from 
which the particular fact of the reality of any being called 
God could follow, as a strict logical consequence, is the princi- 
ple — acknowledged or assumed — of the real existence of God. 
But this is the very fact or supposition for which we are seek- 
ing proof. On the other hand, the result of the philosophical 
denial that we have any verifiable or defensible knowledge of 
an absolute and real Being called God is, in logical consistency, 
the confession that philosophy has no verifiable or defensible 
knowledge of reality at all. 

The essential element in all the arguments for the being of 
God, as the real " Ground " of all other being, is metaphysical, 
or ontological, — as Kant long ago pointed out. The several 
" arguments " are indeed one ; they involve the same process of 
reasoning, based upon all the facts of knowledge, as that by 
which philosophy reaches its postulate of a Unity of all Eeality. 
The ontological argument, customarily so-called, proceeds from 
the existence in human minds of the conception of a "supreme" 
or " most perfect " Being to the reality of the existence of such 
Being. But the existence of the conception is no proof of the 
existence of the reality, unless we admit that postulated faith 
in the highest determinations of reason itself, upon which all 
metaphysics relies. 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 365 

The cosmological argument proceeds from the contingent 
nature of the world of concrete realities and events to the 
necessary Being of their Cause or " Ground." In its customary- 
form this argument makes — as Lotze and others have pointed 
out — a somewhat strange and unwarrantable use of the words 
" contingent " and " necessary ; " and therefore loses much of 
the cogency which it might otherwise claim, by claiming more 
than it can maintain. For, strictly speaking, the cosmological 
idea — that is, the idea of an orderly totality consisting of an 
indefinite number of things and events bound together under 
the terms of universal law — excludes " contingency." Accord- 
ing to this idea, every thing and every event is regarded as 
" constantly conditioned by its own adequate reasons ; " its real 
being, if it be entitled to be called really existent at all, gives 
it a right to the title of " necessary " existence as a real cause 
or " ground." To such a real being " the smallest, meanest, 
and most insignificant thing has just as good a claim as the 
most perfect." 

The teleological argument reasons, from the fact of experience, 
that things and events in the world appear conformable to 
ends, to a single designing and creative reason as the supreme 
cause of the world. It is of this proof, which he calls "physico- 
theological," that Kant remarks : It " will always deserve to be 
treated with respect. It is the oldest, the clearest, and the 
most in conformity with human reason. It gives life to the 
study of nature, deriving its own existence from it, and thus 
constantly acquiring new vigor." It is this argument, how- 
ever, which has been most stoutly (and to a certain extent, 
most successfully) resisted by modern physical science. That 
it involves many gaps, certain inconsistencies, and several sub- 
ordinate assumptions which, of themselves, need verification, 
the candid inquirer can scarcely have a doubt. It cannot be 
said to amount to a demonstration of the conclusion at which 
it arrives. On the other hand, it is at least equally unfair, as 
an understatement of the truth, to say that no verifiable knowl- 



366 - PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

edge of the " World-Ground " is to be reached by setting forth 
from the experience which we have of the presence of manifold 
forms of being, and especially of life, that make upon the mind 
the irresistible impression of a reciprocal arrangement and 
operation of elements in the realization of some idea. Indeed, 
the more widely and profoundly the conception of a universal 
mechanism is explored, the more widely, profoundly, and in- 
telligently does the presence of Finality, of significant ideas, 
come to be discerned. The expanded conception of mechan- 
ism extends, instead of narrowing, the sphere of the ideal 
interpretation of Nature. 

The philosophy of religion begins its attempt to render ra- 
tional the knowledge and faith that have God for their object 
by recurring to those fundamental results of philosophical re- 
flection which belong to general metaphysics and to the philos- 
ophy of nature and the philosophy of mind. These results 
show that all developed cognition involves the postulated 
reality of its object. That loosely and inadequately organized 
system of knowledge, which is possessed by every mind that 
has become rational, implies some sort of a real unity relating 
the various things of experience to one another and to the 
knowing mind. The growth of all science is in the direction of 
substituting for this imperfectly organized system of knowledge 
a system that shall be elaborate, exact, universally valid, and 
complete. Each particular science proceeds upon the hypothesis 
that it is dealing with one of the world's subordinate unities, — 
a particular group or class of phenomena, — with a view to re- 
duce to system the cognitions pertaining thereto. Each par- 
ticular science, therefore, presupposes a sort of fragmentary 
unity in reality as that portion of Nature with which it is 
peculiarly concerned. But the growth of none of these par- 
ticular sciences is possible without introducing considerations 
that bind it, as a particular science, to others of a common 
class. One of the most notable assumptions made use of by all 
intelligent students of nature is the unity of all science, — and 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 367 

so, by immediate inference, of the objective realities in whose 
cognition as related the science itself consists. The physical 
sciences are fast binding themselves more closely together by 
extending over the particular members of the community the 
conception of universally existent physical entities under uni- 
versally controlling laws. Nor does the scientific mind easily 
tolerate the belief that no kind of unity in reality exists be- 
tween the objects of the physical sciences and the world of 
minds. Biology and psycho-physics and the theory of knowl- 
edge agree in assuming the existence of such a unity. 

All the particular sciences are penetrated with confidence in 
the validity of those principles which are of the very constitu- 
tion of reason itself. These principles are, indeed, the presup- 
positions, whether crudely or intelligently made, of all scientific 
cognition as well as of all the knowledge which belongs to the 
more ordinary rational activity of man. It is possible to sum- 
mon these principles before the bar of the critical judgment. 
It is possible to be sceptical as to the extra-mental worth 
and application, so to speak, of even these most universal 
and necessary presuppositions. The issue of such scepticism, 
whether in irrational agnosticism or in its own self-limitation, 
and the return to reason's inalienable confidence in her own 
forms of life, the discussion of the theory of knowledge has 
already set forth. 

The philosophy of religion may confidently rely upon all the 
other departments of philosophy for confirmation of some such 
statement as the following : A Unity of real Being is the pri- 
mal Subject, the ultimate " Ground,'* of all those related changes 
which human cognition apprehends as the being and action of 
the empirical system of minds and things. The alternative of 
this statement is not knowledge, but a denial of knowledge. ' It 
is such a denial of knowledge as, consistently carried out, con- 
verts all human science into the merely subjective and unveri- 
fiable play of ideas. All reasoned scepticism in opposition to 
this positive statement ends in the most complete Solipsism. 



368 « PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

On this conclusion of scepticism, however logically drawn, rea- 
son reacts and postulates again a world of reality. It is as 
rational to deny real existence to the minds of others, and to 
the things and events of the world of our common experience, 
as to deny the reality of the existence of the one Ground of 
them all. But all these forms of denial are alike irrational. If 
then we designate by the convenient but indefinite term, " the 
Absolute " (or the uncouth but expressive term, " the World- 
Ground "), this unitary Being which is the alone real subject of 
all the concrete and individual empirical realities, we are war- 
ranted in affirming : The existence of the Absolute (or the 
" World-Ground ") is the most certain of all philosophical 
truths. 

But there is a long way in reflective thinking from this " Ab- 
solute " to the Being whom religious faith accepts and worships 
by the name of God. And it would be uncandid and unwise to 
affirm that all the steps of that way can be taken with a like con- 
fident appeal to the accepted results of philosophical reflection. 
All attempts to solve the great problem of philosophy, however 
agnostic, may be shown virtually to admit the necessity of this 
postulate of the Absolute. The equivalent of the statement we 
have just propounded in the name of metaphysics is made by 
the advocates of every manner of philosophical system, — 
realistic or idealistic, theistic, pantheistic, or even avowedly 
atheistic. This is as true of " the Unknowable " of Herbert 
Spencer or " the Unconscious " of Hartmann, as it is of the 
" Self-same One " of Neo-Platonism or the " I Am " of the an- 
cient Hebrews. It is as true of Spinoza's Infinite Substance or 
Schopenhauer's " Will " as Ding-an-sich, as it is of the Triune 
God of Christian theology. All these and similar terms imply 
that ultimate analysis, and that supreme synthesis, which finds 
the fundamental categories recognized by metaphysics to have 
their truest application to the Absolute, to the one real Ground 
of the existence and action of all particular things and minds. 

It is at this point, however, that the most profound diffi- 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 369 

culties belonging to the philosophy of religion emerge. May 
the personality of the Absolute be affirmed as a proposition 
valid in synthetic philosophy ? and, if so, on what grounds that 
are recognized by the consensus of philosophical opinion ? The 
" metaphysical core " of the conception of God is, we believe, a 
principle universally recognized by all serious attempts at phil- 
osophical system. But the fact cannot be concealed that when, 
in the interests of religious faith, the effort is made further to 
define the Absolute as personal, much tacit dissent and even 
open and intelligent opposition is encountered. The essence of 
that personality which Theism desires to secure for the Abso- 
lute or World-Ground, is, first of all, self-consciousness. The 
next inquiry before the philosophy of religion may then be stated 
in terms somewhat like the following: Does this Unity of Eeal- 
ity, the so-called Absolute, present itself, as objects for itself, 
with those changes in reality of which it is the ultimate cause ; 
refer them to itself as the one real Subject of them all ; and so 
realize in a mental life of its own the unity which, by the pos- 
tulate of our reason, it is known to be ? Thus much, at least, 
would seem to be implied in the question : Is the Absolute self- 
conscious Personality ? This is the first great disputed inquiry 
in the philosophy of religion. 

The answer which the philosophy of religion proposes to the 
question just raised involves three sets of considerations. These 
are, first, the objections to the self-consciousness of the Absolute; 
second, the arguments for the self-consciousness of the Abso- 
lute as far as they are implied in the essential factors of the 
concept of the Absolute ; third, the affirmative arguments to be 
derived from the more purely emotional, ethical, and sesthetical 
impulses of human nature. 

The objections to affirming the self-consciousness of the 
Absolute, of that unitary Being which philosophy recognizes 
as the " World-Ground," are derived from two principal sources. 
Of these the first is the very nature of self-consciousness. It 
is said that to affirm self-consciousness and absoluteness of the 

24 



370 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

same Being is to affirm a contradiction in terms. Since self- 
consciousness is essentially a limitation and implies a condi- 
tioning of one being on another, the Absolute cannot be 
self-conscious. In considering this objection we take from 
descriptive psychology the results of its analysis of conscious- 
ness and of self-consciousness. This analysis shows that all 
our consciousness — that is, all immediately known psychical 
or mental life — is indeed conditioned on other being than 
that of the being which is itself conscious. This condition- 
ating is twofold. Consciousness as an act implies the stimulus, 
or occasioning activity, of that which is other than the con- 
scious being ; consciousness, as a so-called power displayed in 
every conscious act, -implies a nature (derived or conditioned) 
of the being that, on occasion of being acted upon by other 
being, becomes conscious. 

As to self-consciousness, too, a scientific analysis of the 
process shows that it, in fact, occurs only as a reference of 
some concrete and individual state to the Ego as the subject of 
all states; and that the states thus referred are generally, if 
not always, conditioned by the action of being that is recog- 
nized as non-ego ; while the form of the reference is always 
conditioned upon the derived and conditioned nature of the 
self-conscious mind. 

Admissions like the foregoing do not prove, however, that 
self-consciousness is, essentially considered, possible only for 
dependent and conditionated being. They simply assert that 
all our acts of self-consciousness are actually states of such 
being. In other words, they warrant only the obvious conclu- 
sion that we are not self-conscious absolute beings. We are 
self-conscious ; but we are not the kind of being that is entitled 
to be called the Absolute, the " World-Ground." Self-con- 
sciousness .per se requires simply the conscious reference of 
those changes in the reality of mental life which we call 
" states " to a real unity of this mental life, to the so-called 
" self," as their subject or ground. Psychological analysis finds 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 371 

nothing belonging to the essence of self-consciousness which is 
incompatible with absoluteness of being. On the contrary, if 
the Absolute is indeed the real subject and ultimate cause of 
all those changes which in reality occur, then it may, for that 
reason, the more " conveniently," — if we may so speak, — and 
in strict truthfulness, refer them to its self-hood as its own 
consciously cognized states. So far as self-consciousness con- 
stitutes personality, we may even affirm with Lotze : " Perfect 
personality is reconcilable only with the conception of an In- 
finite Being ; for finite beings only an approximation to this is 
attainable." 

The second class of objections to the self-consciousness of the 
Absolute, although less frequently urged, are more difficult to 
answer. They arise on ethical grounds. They concern that 
most difficult of all philosophical inquiries ; namely, the true 
way of mentally representing the relations of the Absolute to 
all finite and limited personal beings. How shall this be 
done so as to conserve the essential interests of moral princi- 
ples ? To say that, in one aspect, all material things are but 
dependent phases of the life of the Absolute, and that all so- 
called physical forces and changes are to be ascribed to the Will 
of the Absolute, occasions no offence to our ethical ideals. No 
important ethical objections arise when we postulate the self- 
consciousness of that Unitary Being which is the primal sub- 
ject, the ultimate Ground, of the physical universe. The being 
and changes of things are known to the Absolute as its own 
self-consciously cognized states ; the life of the world of things 
is the self-conscious life of the " World-Ground." 

Ethics does not object to statements such as these. But 
fhen a similar affirmation is made concerning the being and 
action of self-conscious minds, our ethical conceptions and feel- 
ings must be tenderly dealt with, or they feel deeply wounded 
in vital parts. And yet how can we avoid that affirmation, to 
which the concurrent investigations of all the branches of phi- 
losophy point the way ? The being and action of the mind of 



372 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

man has its Ground in that same Absolute whose self-conscious 
life is the reality of things. But does the Absolute lose its own 
self-consciousness when it serves — so to speak — as the Ground 
of the world of self-conscious finite minds ? Are not the states 
and actions of these finite minds necessarily known to the 
Absolute as being — what, if the Absolute be a self-conscious 
Person, they certainly are — modes of its own self-conscious 
life ? No consistent and tenable philosophical position is open 
to us but the affirmative answer to this question. 

But our ethical conceptions and feelings at once raise an in- 
quiry as to the consequences of the position which philosophy 
feels compelled to assume. How then, it inquires, shall we 
conceive of that reality of moral being, of responsibility and 
character, which is the most priceless possession of finite minds ? 
Theology is also apt to take alarm at this position, and inquire : 
Would philosophy then make God the only sinner, the author 
of all sin ? Speculative thinking, whether in ethics, theology, 
or philosophy, cannot give an entirely satisfactory answer to 
these inquiries, or wholly allay the feeling of alarm. Philos- 
ophy cannot, however, retract its tenet that the self-conscious- 
ness of the Absolute must be a consciousness of the being and 
action of all things and all minds, — as having their life and 
being in Itself, the universal " "World- Ground." Various con- 
siderations soften the difficulties and allay the alarms occa- 
sioned by this tenet of the self-consciousness of the Absolute. 

That finite minds are never, and in no wise, independent of 
God, is a proposition which is the very opposite of repugnant 
to religious belief. "In Him . . . we have our being," is a 
tenet of religion, as well as of philosophy. Having once ac- 
cepted this principle, we cannot reasonably refuse to continue 
it in good faith, and in a comprehensive application of its 
truth. Of the constitution and activity of our bodies we need 
not hesitate for a moment to admit : it is all constantly and 
absolutely dependent upon the being of the Absolute. But by 
the postulate of religion, this being is a self-conscious life. 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 373 

His self-conscious life is, then, no more to be excluded — as 
respects space, time, and causation — from the molecules of 
the human brain than from the interior of the densest lead 
ball. These molecules " live and move and have their being " 
in the Absolute. Nor need we hesitate to deny that the life 
of conscious sensation and ideation, which we justly call our 
own, is as truly and constantly interpenetrated by and depend- 
ent upon this universal self-conscious life. The conception of a 
co-etaneous self-conscioilsness of the Absolute for every act of 
our self-consciousness may be difficult or impossible to bring 
before the mind ; but we are not justified, for that reason, in 
maintaining the impossibility of the reality to which the con- 
ception aims to correspond. On the contrary, all the general 
defences which philosophy builds about the self-consciousness 
of the Absolute are also defences against assaults upon this 
conception. 

It is only when, by seemingly unavoidable inference, the 
responsibility for human choices, and for their result in human 
character, is removed from finite minds and laid, as it were, 
upon the universal Will, that theology and ethics more posi- 
tively and intelligently object. But that activity of its own 
which the finite mind cognizes in self-conscious volition or 
free choice is, like every other activity, dependent on the 
being and action, in the finite mind, of the Absolute. Such 
activity is therefore known to the Absolute, if known at all, 
as being what it really is ; namely, as a manifestation of its 
own being and action, a self-consciously recognized change in 
itself, the alone primary and fundamental cause of all physical 
and psychical life. But how can this be, and yet the finite 
mind remain " free " and " responsible," in the meaning of those 
important adjectives which ethics seems to require ? This is 
a question which all systems of philosophy are powerless satis- 
factorily to answer. But then it is a question which every 
form of theology, and all religious faith, is even more powerless 
to answer. It is the old and ever-unsolved problem : How can 



374 PHILOSOPHY OF EELIGIOK 

real personal and ethical finite being co-exist in the same uni- 
verse with absolute Personal Being? In more distinctively 
theological form : How can God be infinite, and finite man be 
responsible and free ? 

In dealing with this insolvable problem philosophy may take 
one of several possible courses. It may deny that man is re- 
sponsible and free, that he is indeed a really ethical being. It 
is difficult briefly to sketch the consequences upon all the de- 
partments of reflective thinking which logically follow from 
this denial. It must suffice to say that, under its influence, the 
whole aspect of life and reality, not only as subjects of specu- 
lative treatment, but also as objects of practical endeavor, is 
profoundly changed. Those branches of philosophy which 
treat of the Ideals of Eeason — the philosophy of morals, of 
aesthetics, and of religion — suffer most. The change involves 
their theoretical completeness and their power to supply ra- 
tional principles for conduct. But even in the sphere of met- 
aphysics important changes become necessary. Moreover, such 
a denial is obviously opposed to a large class of facts which, 
although they have that indefinite and elusive character which 
belongs to all facts of emotion, aspiration, and belief in ideals, 
are among the most stubborn and influential factors of human 
experience. 

In its endeavors to escape the intellectual difficulties which 
arise from admitting the co-existence and reciprocal action of 
finite personality and a self-conscious Absolute, philosophy 
may deny that the Absolute is self-conscious personality. The 
ultimate philosophical position then becomes that of mate- 
rialism, pantheism, or agnosticism. But such a denial is ac- 
customed, and indeed almost compelled, to include also the 
freedom and real ethical being of finite minds. In the interests 
then of a supposed speculative consistency it, too, sacrifices 
many of the most pressing claims of the ethical, sesthetical, and 
religious nature of man. Moreover, it may be convicted of a 
vicious or incomplete metaphysics, in so far as we are able to 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 375 

show that there are positive reasons for affirming the self- 
conscious personality of the so-called " World-Ground." 

In the face of these supreme difficulties, the only course re- 
maining for the philosophy of religion is the only defensible 
course. It consists, first, in maintaining, on rational grounds, 
both the reality of man's ethical personality and the absolute- 
ness of the self-conscious Life in which this finite personality 
has its ground. It requires, next, the effort so to frame the 
conception and statement of these two great truths as to free 
them from the contradictions which they seem, at first sight, 
to involve. That this effort is accompanied by a progress 
in approximation to complete success, we believe the history 
of this branch of philosophy will prove. To this end both 
descriptive and speculative psychology are constantly mak- 
ing certain contributions ; and so is the discussion, current in 
treatises on ethics and theology. This end the philosophy of 
religion will more nearly attain when it is ready faithfully and 
candidly to avail itself of the conclusions of psychological 
science and of the indications derived from the history of 
philosophy. 

But, finally, it must be admitted that we are utterly unable 
to satisfy the demand for a comprehensive knowledge of the 
manner of that reciprocal action which constantly takes place 
in reality between finite personality and the personal Absolute. 
But " the manner " of all ultimate connection between the really 
existent beings of even the finite world is hidden from our 
sight. The fact of any connection at all appears to us an ulti- 
mate and incomprehensible fact. This is true of that connec- 
tion which physical science assumes among all the elements 
and aggregations of elements that constitute the world of things 
with which it deals. At least equally mysterious is the con- 
nection between things and finite minds. How can matter act 
on mind, and mind on matter ? This is a question which has 
been the puzzle of the ages. Knowledge, ordinary or scientific, 
does not depend on our being able to answer the question: 



376 PHILOSOPHY OP RELIGION. 

How is any action of one real thing on another possible ? It 
rather assumes such action as a fact, and endeavors to discover 
the terms, or uniform sequences, of the admitted action. 

In raising the inquiries, How the self-conscious Absolute can 
act, not only upon, but — since we are speaking of the Absolute 
and of its self-consciousness — also in and through finite per- 
sonality ; and, How this Absolute can be conscious of the being 
and action of finite personality as, not simply the being and ac- 
tion of that which is other than itself, but also as being and 
action of which it is itself the ultimate " Ground," — we have 
reached the utmost limit of the tether of human reason. 
Properly speaking, neither science nor philosophy (but then 
also neither theology, nor religious imagination, nor revelation, 
nor faith) can answer these inquiries. In the conceptions with 
which the inquiries deal lie those mysteries which are part of 
the secret of the Being and Life of the Absolute. The effort 
of philosophy is to clear from contradictions these conceptions, 
and definitively to limit the sphere of ultimate mystery. This 
effort involves the handling of the most difficult and delicate 
of all philosophical problems. 

Positive arguments for the self-consciousness of the " World- 
Ground," may be divided into two classes. These are the more 
distinctively metaphysical, and the more distinctively ethical 
and sesthetical. The former endeavor to show that the most 
rational, if not the only intelligible, determination of the ad- 
mitted characteristics of the Absolute, implies self-conscious 
personality. Such characteristics are chiefly those expressed 
in the terms Unity, Eeality, Subject of States, Ground of activ- 
ity that manifests Finality, etc. Upon this question we find 
the two extreme positions taken, on the one hand by writers 
like Hartmann, and, on the other, by those who sympathize with 
the metaphysical conclusions of Lotze. 

The predicate of " Will," as applied to the Absolute, seems to 
imply self-conscious personality. Now, Schopenhauer and Hart- 
mann both affirm that the word " Will " is far better fitted to 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 377 

give intelligible expression to the essence of the Absolute than 
is the word " Force." What it is really to will — say they — 
we know in concrete self-conscious experience : what it is really 
to be a " force," or to exert " force," or to conserve " force," — if it 
be somewhat essentially different from our experience in being 
wills, — we cannot even form the faintest conception. " Will," 
then, is a term confessedly representing a generalization 
from concrete self-conscious experience. Blind or unconscious 
Will, on the contrary, is a synonym for Force. Accordingly, 
when we deny to this "moment" in the life of the Abso- 
lute the determination of self-consciousness, we only fall back, 
under a new and illusive term (namely, "Will"), upon the 
same confessedly unrealizable conception (namely, " Force "). 
For Mr. Herbert Spencer's Unity of "Force," which the uni- 
verse of phenomena manifests to us, we may fitly substitute 
a Unity of " Will ; " but in doing this, we really advance 
a reason for affirming the self-consciousness of the " World- 
Ground." 

Somewhat similar must our conclusions be when we attempt 
clearly to analyze what is meant by speaking of the " Unity " 
of the Absolute. Is not the rational, self-conscious life of mind 
only the type and norm of all unity, the form inclusive of the 
essence of whatever is really One ? In what couceivable sense, 
we may ask, can things be unitary beings to us, unless we cog- 
nize them as such in the uniting act of self-conscious life ? 
How, moreover, do we become " one " to ourselves, and set our- 
selves as unitary beings over against all beings not-ourselves 
(not one with us), except in and through the same process of 
self-conscious cognition ? If, then, by the Unity of the Abso- 
lute we mean anything more than the unity of mental repre- 
sentation for ourselves which the picture of the Absolute has 
must not this Unity realize itself in the only conceivable form 
of an actual self-conscious Life ? " Transfigured Eealism," as it 
seems to us, must either be so transfigured as no longer to be 
realism, or else it must give an intelligible character to the 



378 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

unity in reality which we affirm of the Absolute, in the form 
of a unity of self-conscious Mind. 

It is the contention of a certain development of German 
speculative thinking that no being can have reality (in the only 
highest and truly defensible meaning of the term) which is not 
capable of being something more than an object for the cog- 
nition of other being ; which is not indeed capable of being 
subject-object, object to itself (of having " For- Self -Being," Fiir- 
sich-sein). Thus Lotze is fond of affirming that self-conscious 
spiritual Life is the only true reality. On this principle, the 
only real being which " Things " can have, is their being in the 
self-conscious life of the Absolute ; and, furthermore, the only 
satisfactory claim to the highest reality, which the Absolute 
can make, depends upon the postulate that the Absolute is an 
actual Life of self-consciousness in an eternal self-realizing as 
Spirit and Idea. Views concerning this contested point are 
among those which the philosophy of religion borrows from 
metaphysics. In this connection, then, we recall how philo- 
sophical analysis shows that all reality is given to us only as 
implicated in the process of self-conscious cognition. Impli- 
cated in this process are those obscure beliefs and indefinable 
postulates which cluster, as it were, about reality. And as 
separable from these momenta of the self-conscious process we 
can attach no meaning at all to the term " reality." The funda- 
mental choice of metaphysics appears then to lie between 
affirming the self-consciousness of the supreme Reality, and the 
untenable position of scepticism toward the fundamental postu- 
lates of all knowledge. 

That the conception of the Absolute as the real Subject or 
Ground of the changes which happen in reality compels us to 
affirm the self-consciousness of the Absolute, is a proposition 
required, we believe, by all thorough psychological and philo- 
sophical analysis. 

The second set of considerations which influence us to con- 
clude that the " World-Ground " is self-conscious and personal, 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 379 

are more difficult to put into the form of argument. They are, 
however, no less cogent on this account. They are derived from 
the ethical and sesthetical, and especially from the more dis- 
tinctively religious, feeling of mankind. Ethical human nature 
shrinks back, bewildered, before a philosophical system which 
finds the World-Ground in blind, unconscious (and therefore 
unfeeling and unethical) Force. iEsthetical human nature 
seeks to realize its ideas of the beautiful in that act of imagina- 
tion which projects a beauty of self-conscious and rational life 
into the ultimate Keality. And the life of religious faith and 
conduct finds it exceedingly difficult, if not quite impossible, to 
maintain itself at all, in the face of the conclusion that its 
object of belief, adoration and obedience, is devoid of all which 
it esteems of most value, — in brief, of self-conscious life. In 
this sphere of feeling — ethical, aesthetical, and religious — lie 
many considerations, therefore, which carry great positive 
weight in determining the question : Is the Absolute an uncon- 
scious Force, or a rational and self-conscious Life ? 

On these and similar grounds, and in spite of all the inherent 
difficulties and objections, the philosophy of religion is war- 
ranted in affirming the self-consciousness of the Absolute. 

The grave and difficult question which next arises concerns \\ 
the ethical being of the Absolute. Is the " World-Ground " a 
moral personality ? In searching for an answer to this impor- 
tant inquiry, the appeal to the physical and natural sciences is 
suggestive but unsatisfying. Physical nature can only very 
imperfectly be shown to rest upon an ethical basis. The ap- 
pearance of rational order, which the World has been held by 
the majority of thoughtful observers to possess, is indeed sug- 
gestive of a quasi-moral " World-Ground." Nor do the explan- 
ations of a mechanical theory as to how, in fact, this order came 
to establish itself, deprive the suggestion of its force. On the 
contrary, the mechanical theory, even in any one of the several 
forms given to it by the disciples of evolution, adds certain im- 
portant elements to the general suggestion. It hints, at least, 




380 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

at the possibility that further knowledge of the necessities of 
the case, so to speak, and of the final outcome of the stern 
application of these necessities, when made to all sentient life, 
would remove the impression of the w/i-morality, or the immor- 
ality, of much of nature's action. But the most favorable 
interpretation of the working of physical forces and natural 
laws, which it is fair or rational to make, leaves much that is 
difficult to reconcile with the ethical being of the "World- 
Ground." 

It is, therefore, rather to human nature and to history that 
we turn for so-called arguments by which to prove the ethical 
being of the Absolute. On this field, it cannot be denied that 
philosophy can make out a much clearer case. Yet even on 
this field disputes arise which are not easy of settlement. 

All satisfactory philosophical account of the existence of 
distinctively ethical human nature seems to us definitely to 
indicate, if it does not completely prove, the ethical being of 
the One in whom this nature has its explanation and ground. 
This conclusion can be maintained after candidly weighing 
all the efforts of evolutionary science to describe the stages 
by which man's moral nature has attained its present 
development. 

The genesis and the significance of those unique ideas and 
feelings which we call " moral " seem plainly to require an 
ethical and — as it were — a sympathetic "Ground." How a 
merely physical evolution, or an orderly play of blind, uncon- 
scious forces, can result in the manifestation of such ideas and 
feelings, with their characteristics of universality and uncon- 
ditioned value, it is quite impossible to conceive. But it is not 
less impossible to conceive how an Absolute, that is essentially 
self-conscious personality, could be the primal cause in reality 
of other ethical life without itself being an ethical Life. Does, 
then, the Absolute, as the admitted ground of moral nature in 
man, represent to itself these ideas of the Right, the Ought, 
and the ethically well- or ill-deserving, as universal and of 



PHILOSOPHY OF KELIGIOK 381 

unconditional value, without manifesting its own real being 
therein ? An affirmative answer to this question seems to us 
inconceivable. Probably no system of ethical philosophy has 
maintained that the Absolute is the self-conscious and primal 
source of all ethical ideating and feeling in man, and yet is itself 
devoid of ethical life. As a matter of fact, the denial of the 
self-conscious personality, and the denial of the moral person- 
ality of the Absolute, stand or fall together. 

This more distinctively metaphysical argument may be 
supplemented by considerations drawn from the phenomena of 
ethical, sesthetical, and religious feeling. That ethical finite 
being should be dependent, for its destiny, upon an unethical 
ground, can never be otherwise than offensive and distressful 
to ethical feeling. So do certain strong spontaneous responses 
which sesthetical human nature makes to the encitement fur- 
nished by the perception of natural objects, by the intercourse 
of society and the contemplation of phenomena of history, 
impel the mind to belief in the moral personality of the Abso- 
lute. The feeling of genuine awe, as distinguished from the 
feeling of personal fear, may be regarded as one of those vague 
but potent assthetical bonds which exist between the heart of 
man and the moral being of the " World-Ground." Nor can 
that limitless capacity for admiration, for reverence, for affection, 
which human nature develops — since the capacity finds its 
rational correlate in no finite object to call forth its full measure 
— fail to be regarded as indicative of the soul's instinctive feel- 
ing after the moral personality " whom faith calls God." The 
tendency of men to adore and to obey that which they conceive 
of as morally good and great, points in the same direction. In 
fine, the threads of that web of unformulated arguments which 
the capacities and inclinations of man's emotional nature weaves 
around the concept of an ethical Absolute, are invisible and 
delicate, yet tenacious and effective. As craving is the spur 
which nature thrusts into the side of all living beings, from the 
amoeba to the highest of the mammals, so insatiable longing 



382 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

after good, and unceasing dissatisfaction with the finite, are the 
cry of the human soul after an ethical and sesthetical " World- 
Ground." 

" In die "Welt hinausgestossen 
Stent der Mensch verlassen da." 

An impersonal and unethical Cosmos furnishes cold food for this 
craving. This " deep-seated craving " it was which led Augustine 
to the true knowledge of God, when he had been for some time 
" hunting after the emptiness of popular praise, down even to 
theatrical applauses, and poetic prizes, and strifes for grassy 
garlands, and the follies of shows, and the intemperance of 
desires." "Justice," says George Eliot, "is like the kingdom 
of God, — it is not without as a fact, it is within us as a great 
yearning." " Justice," and all the other moral predicates which 
religion ascribes to the Absolute, are esteemed to be without as a 
fact, because in fact they are within us as a " great yearning." 

It is without doubt difficult to formulate reasons for conclusions 
reached under pressure from the ethical, sesthetical, and religious 
feelings. It is none the less true, however, that these feelings 
in fact exist, and do actually impel men to faith in the real 
existence of God as an object needed for their completer 
satisfaction. 

That self-conscious and ethical personal Absolute, which 
philosophy postulates as the " Ground " of other nature, but 
especially of human nature, we are entitled to call God. When 
this supreme synthesis as to the being of the Absolute is reached, 
the so-called " proofs " for the existence of God have done their 
appointed work. We cannot, however, attain the same rational 
confidence with regard to all the definite ethical predicates 
which theology is wont to ascribe to God. Here emerges in 
the path of the progress of religious philosophy the fierce and 
dreadful conflict between Pessimism and Optimism. The most 
cautious analysis and the boldest but wisest synthesis prevent 
the student of philosophy from rashly handing in his adherence 
to either of these conflicting parties. Certainly none of the 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 383 

many forms of an easy-going Optimism can find acceptance 
with penetrating and thoughtful minds. The profound reality 
and mysterious significance of physical and moral evil hang like 
a thick cloud over every direct path by which we try to reach 
the proof that perfect justice and perfect goodness belong to 
God. The discoveries of modern science peremptorily reject the 
traditional argument of theology by which the entire weight of 
the world's physical evil is hung upon the sinful choice of finite 
minds. That wrong-doing necessarily produces misery, and that 
much of the misery of men is actually produced by their wrong- 
doing, are propositions from which no system of ethics dissents. 
But, on the other hand, the phenomena appealed to by pessimis- 
tic systems like those of Schopenhauer and Hartmann are unmis- 
takable enough ; and the domain covered by such phenomena 
is probably being increased rather than diminished by the dis- 
coveries of modern physiology and psychology. Every new 
form of disease-producing microbe, with its distribution of its 
products, like the rain, upon the just and the unjust, is a start- 
ling additional fact thrown into the scale which Pessimism is 
interested in weighting heavily. Nor is the depressing evidence 
confined to the sphere of physics alone. That manifestation of 
the Power not-ourselves " which makes for righteousness " in 
human history is far from being such as to enable the holders 
of optimistic views readily to triumph over their opponents. 

On the other hand, Hartmann's elaborate attempt to raise 
the widespread pessimistic feeling and judgment of the age 
to the dignity of a philosophical system, on the compound basis 
of psychological analysis and induction from facts of history, is 
a failure ; and — from the very nature of the case — a dismal 
failure. 1 It overestimates the relative number and significance 
of the facts on which it relies ; it underestimates the number 
and significance of those facts to which the opposed theory can 

1 Comp. Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, Coupland's translation, 
vol. iii. ; and Zur Geschichte und Begriindung des Pessimismus, Berlin, 1880, hy 
the same author ; also, Der moderne Pessimismus, by Dr. Ludwig von Golther, 
Leipzig, 1878 ; and Sully, Pessimism : A History and a Criticism, London, 1877. 



384 PHILOSOPHY OF EELIGIOK 

point. It fails to show — as it aims to do — that pain is a 
necessary factor of all conscious life, and an increasingly large 
factor as the development of the higher and more rational forms 
of life goes on, rather than a temporary coudition in the evolu- 
tion of these higher forms. It treats far too cavalierly (and 
therefore unphilosophically) those fears, faiths, and hopes, which 
extend the continuity and significance of the life of the indi- 
vidual, and of the community, into other times and spheres 
than those whose facts can be made the basis of a scientific 
induction ; and, finally, it loses much of its support from other 
more fundamental principles in the philosophical system of 
which it forms a part, when its proposition that the being of 
the Absolute is w?iconscious and imethical, is successfully dis- 
proved. Historically considered, Hartmann's views on this 
subject are a fleeting product of the worst temper of the present 
age. On this point we agree with the observation of Dr. 
Edmund Pfleiderer. 1 " We should honor too highly that mode 
of wisdom called Pessimism, if we assented to the multitude 
and considered it as anything more than an apparent systema- 
tizing of that bad humor which afflicts the many blase minds of 
our highly nervous century, — as being a really new and epoch- 
making view of the Universe at large. The moral disease to 
which our age is subject, an indolent eudsemonism, has found 
expression in it. This, and this alone, is the reason for that 
wealth of applause from a multitude of like-minded men, of 
which this tendency in thinking loves complacently to boast." 

In the face of two contradictory conclusions suggested by 
induction from two sets of facts, it is not of the nature of human 
reason to remain at rest. The philosophy of religion, from a 
survey of all the phenomena, does not confidently derive the 
conclusion that the world is, ethically or aesthetically, the best 
conceivable or the best possible ; or that the " World-Ground " 
is perfectly wise, just, and good. Much less, however, does it 

1 Die Aufgabe der Philosophie in unserer Zeit, Rede zur Feier des Geburts« 
tages seiner Majestat . . . Wilhelm I., etc. Kiel, 1874. 



PHILOSOPHY OF EELIGION. 335 

derive in this way the contradictory of these conclusions. In 
the conflict of mental tendencies which is occasioned by the 
attempt to make a rational choice between the two conflicting 
systems of philosophical conclusions, the ancient principle of 
Becoming, or rather the more modern principle of a rational 
evolution of the world, is a helpful resource. As the vastness 
— in respect to space, time, and complexity and number of 
objects and interests — of the application of this principle be- 
comes apparent, the lesson of that patient, wise, and cautious 
spirit which philosophy should cherish, is enforced by the most 
tremendous sanctions. Philosophy finds little satisfaction in 
the current theological theodicies, whether they consider the 
facts of the present and the past, and predict the future, from 
the predominatingly optimistic, or the predominatingly pessi- 
mistic point of view. Even more unsatisfactory, however, seem 
all the recent attempts to explain the world's being and progress 
without attributing it to an ethical and self-conscious " Ground." 

At this point those facts with which the study of the history of 
civilization makes us familiar offer their assistance to the syn- 
thesis of philosophy. On the whole they show — we believe — 
some firmly secured progress of the race toward the supreme 
ethical and sesthetical Good. In spite of all that the pessimism 
of Hartmann has to offer, the claims to an increase of every 
important form of well-being by the struggles of the race 
through the centuries can be established on historical grounds. 

It is, however, only when we contemplate the phenomena of 
the religious life, and especially of Christianity — that most 
historical and inherently progressive of all religions — that the 
more convincing form of obtainable evidence is presented to the 
mind. The conceptions of a progressive redemption of the race, 
of the final triumph of the supreme Good over all that we call 
evil, and of the union of all ultimate forms of the Good — hap- 
piness, beauty, and righteousness — in the blessed life of a com- 
munity known as the perfected " Kingdom of God," largely 
determine our attitude toward the debated question of Optimism 

25 



386 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

or Pessimism. That these conceptions originate and nourish 
chiefly in the domain of one form of religion called " revealed " 
constitutes no reason whatever why philosophy should refuse or 
hesitate to make use of them. 

The proposition that the Absolute is a perfect self-conscious 
ethical life — that One who is not only all-wise but infinitely 
just and good exists as the " World-Ground " — does not admit 
of " proof," in the stricter sense of this word. It may be said, 
however, to be the most reasonable hope and faith of the sanest 
and ethically and aesthetically most symmetrical minds. It is a 
proposition which, received as a postulate, is far indeed from 
explaining everything, or even from immediately introducing the 
appearance of harmony among all the facts. It is a proposition, 
the truth of which seems to be progressively accumulating as 
the advance of the race affords more and more of historical 
ground on which the proposition may be based. That it is a 
proposition which the ethical and sesthetical emotions tend to 
regard with a high degree of favor, there can be no doubt. 
Indeed, this statement falls far enough below the truth. It is 
not those who have actually suffered most who have found in 
life, and in their reflections thereon, most reason for the pessi- 
mistic frame of mind. The tried and tortured heroes of the race 
have, for the most part, ranged themselves, to the last extremity 
of personal suffering, on the side of optimistic faith and hope. 
Only a philosophy which has made up its mind from the be- 
ginning rigorously to exclude some of the choicest facts of 
human experience, because it cannot explain — not to say appre- 
ciate — them, will fail to take the testimony of these emotions 
into its account. , 

From the moment when the conclusion is reached, that the 
nature of the " World-Ground ". is the highest self-conscious, 
rational, ethical, and sesthetical Life, the progress of the philos- 
ophy of religion becomes comparatively easy, rapid, and sure. 
To the determination of this great and inclusive problem all its 
other problems are subordinate. If reason can effectively com- 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 387 

mand the light of this Life to arise upon the world's system of 
finite things and minds, then how great is that Light ! Thus 
does the supreme synthesis of philosophy aim to give a pro- 
founder interpretation and a new significance to all the particular 
facts and truths of the positive sciences. 

The God whom philosophy seeks and finds is not a Being to 
be described by the fewest and most abstract terms possible. 
The rather is He the most concrete, real, and individual, and 
yet most varied and comprehensive Life. To that Unity of 
Reality which He is, the philosophy of nature and the philoso- 
phy of mind alike ascribe all the entities, forces, laws, and final 
purposes, which are introduced to them by those particular 
sciences on which their synthesis is built. In Him is the being 
of that which has mass and extension, and which displays 
manifold immanent and transeunt energies of various degrees. 
In Him is the ground of the permanency and unchangeableness 
of the quantum of the world's " matter " so-called ; in Him the 
ground also of the conservation and correlation of energy. It 
is the Unity of His Eeality that explains the reciprocal being 
and action of all things ; and the same is the bond in reality 
between all bodies and their correlated minds. In His own 
abounding ethical and sesthetical Life, with its joy in all the 
reality of the beautiful and the morally good, do we also find 
that ultimate objective basis for human ethical and sesthetical 
development which philosophy seeks. 

The degrees of confidence with which we make these and other 
similar statements are various; and the grounds for the exis- 
tence of confidence in the statements themselves are not all alike 
secure. But the analysis which provides the factors for this 
synthesis, and the comprehensiveness and certainty of the 
resulting synthesis, are both — we believe — constantly winning 
their way in the history of reflective thought. 

Additional evidence for the necessity of postulating self-con- 
scious and ethical personality of the Absolute may be derived 
from the failure of those philosophical systems which deny the 



388 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

truth of this postulate. Metaphysically considered, these sys- 
tems may all be said to be lacking in a sufficient and effective 
principium individuationis. This is manifestly a chief fault of 
Schopenhauer's philosophy. He leaps to the generalization that 
the world as " Thing-in-itself " is Will, by means of an indescri- 
bable and fictitious psychological process. But in order deduc- 
tively to explain the world from this principle of Will, he is 
obliged to introduce into his philosophy a quite unintelligible 
view of the Platonic ideas. These " ideas " must somehow serve 
the Absolute, instead of its own self-conscious personal life, as a 
ground of diversifying itself into the world of phenomena. So, 
too, does Hartmann, by an elaborate process of induction, so 
called, succeed in adding — so he thinks — " Idea " to Will, as 
belonging to the essence of the Absolute. But Hartmann also 
can get no work, no actuality of a world-being and a world- 
process, out of his Absolute, without adding thereto at least 
certain elements of conscious life. Accordingly, he selects these 
elements from the lowest and least worthy forms of life. The 
Absolute is a " clairvoyant," we are told ; the Absolute needs, 
in order to start it upon the process of self-manifestation, at least 
a certain amount of blind but painful feeling of unrest. The 
"single transcendent consciousness of the All-One . . . has for 
sole content the absolutely indefinite transcendent pain or 
unblessedness of the void infinite will." : 

Similar fault might justly be found with all the positive con- 
clusions of other systems of philosophy which, like the systems 
of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, deny to the Absolute a self- 
conscious and ethical life. Their Absolute fails to meet the 
demands of reason as a satisfactory and really effective " World- 
Ground." It needs some other transcendent being than itself, 
or some actual admixture of the very elements theoretically 
denied to it, in order to make it capable of manifesting itself 
after the fashion of the world of our experience, — not to say, 
capable of manifesting itself at all. What is true of Hart- 
1 Philosophy of the Unconscious, Coupland's Translation, ii. 257. 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 389 

mann's " The Unconscious " is — as has frequently been shown 
— true as well of the " Unknowable " of Mr. Spencer. 

The subordinate problems of the philosophy of religion may 
be divided into two groups ; of these, one concerns the predi- 
cates or attributes of God, and the other concerns His relations 
to finite things and minds. All the predicates of God are to 
be more precisely determined in accordance with the concep- 
tion which has already been established ; namely, He is a self- 
conscious, rational, and ethical Absolute. His Unity is to be 
understood as, in kind, the unity of a personal life ; and since 
this personal life is that of the Absolute, we affirm that God is 
one God, the " alone " God, and besides Him is no other. His 
Unchangeableness is not " the monotony and rigidity of a per- 
fect and unchanging self-likeness ; " it is not inconsistent with 
the being subject of changeable inner states. It is rather that 
immanent and consistent adherence to the eternal principles 
of His own rational and ethical life, which is possible for the 
Absolute alone. 

By the Omnipresence of God, it is meant to "maintain, nega- 
tively, that the spatial limitations of finite being and action 
are inapplicable to Him ; and, positively, that in the unknown 
modus of God's being and action within the world of finite 
things and minds lies the ground of the space-forming activity 
of our minds, as well as of the space-formed being of things. 

By the Omnipotence of God it is meant to assert, negatively, 
that the limitations of causal activity, both in intensity and in 
scope, which characterize all finite beings, have no applicability 
to Him; and, positively, that all the action, and all the im- 
plied "power" or energy of things and minds, has its ground 
in Him alone. 

By the Eternity of God, it is meant that the limitations of 
being and action in time which belong to the world of finite 
things and minds do not affect God ; as well as that He is not 
subject to those conditions of the finite world which change 
in time. But it is also implied in the eternity predicated of 



390 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

God that His self-conscious rational life is the permanent and 
unchanging Ground of all the being and action of things and 
minds, in time. Whether the predicate of " time " applies (in 
any meaning of the words, and, if at all, in what precise mean- 
ing of the words) to the life of the Absolute itself, is one of the 
most interesting and yet baffling of the subordinate problems 
of philosophy in the domain of theology and religion. 

By the Omniscience of God, it is meant to deny that any of 
the limitations of knowledge to which finite minds are sub- 
ject apply to God ; it is meant also to affirm that, somehovj, all 
that is knowable is immediately and certainly known by God. 
Eeference has already been made to the many and great diffi- 
culties which encompass every attempt to form a clear mental 
picture of the modus operandi of the infinite knowledge of the 
self-conscious Absolute. 

Of the more precise relations of God to the world, it is cus- 
tomary for philosophical theology to emphasize, chiefly, these 
three : creation, preservation, and government. Under the terms 
of that relation which the word " Creation " signifies we are jus- 
tified only in affirming a priori the essential and absolute (i. e., 
without limitations of time, space, or causal action) dependence 
of the world upon the wisdom and will of God. Under this 
general tenet a number of particular problems range themselves, 
for the attempted solution of which philosophy must acknowl- 
edge its dependence upon the conclusions of the particular sci- 
ences. How — in what order, by what stages and successive 
forms of the appearance of existent beings — did God create the 
world ? Such answer as can be given to an inquiry like this 
must rely upon the consensus of those sciences which describe 
the evolution of all non-living and living beings, in their order 
and relations of dependence toward each other, in time. Are 
we to conceive of that relation between God and the world, 
which the word "creation" signifies, as eternal, or as having 
had a beginning in time ? For the doubtful answer which is 
alone possible to this question, we need such help as psychology 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 391 

can furnish by an analysis of the concept of "time," supple- 
mented by such contributions as physical science can make 
touching the probable past duration of the system of finite 
things. Other inquiries — such as, Why did God create the 
World at all ? or, Why create it at some particular time rather 
than another ? or, How can we conceive of time as being when, 
as yet, the created world was not ? — are speculative puzzles 
which belong, most fitly, to the play-time rather than to the 
serious work of the student of philosophy. 

By the divine " Preservation " of the world, it is meant to as- 
sert that the world is continuously and ceaselessly dependent, 
for all its being and action, upon the immanent being and un- 
ceasingly active will of God. The more precise determination of 
this relation, as well as of the relation of creation, will be differ- 
ently made by thinkers belonging to different schools of philos- 
ophy. What sort of being (of so-called reality or substantiality) 
does God impart to, and maintain in, finite things and finite 
minds ? It is plain that, in the attempt to answer this ques- 
tion, the most fundamentally divergent views on the theory 
of knowledge, on metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics, will make 
themselves strongly felt. But especially will the resources of 
speculative thinking be taxed to their utmost capacity in the 
effort to frame a consistent and tenable theory of the divine 
relation, in both creation and preservation, to finite minds. On 
the one hand, the " creation " of the soul cannot consist in the 
planting, as it were, within a body, of some undeveloped " mind- 
stuff " ready made ; nor can its preservation be held to mean 
that, having been constituted "substantial," it continues to exist 
as long as God preserves it from the destructive force of phys- 
ical agencies. Doubtless, it is as really true of minds as of 
things : In Him they live . . . and have their being. On the 
other hand, the principles of ethical self-consciousness cannot, 
safely or reasonably, be sacrificed to the desire of philosophy 
for a perfectly logical and deductive system of modes of oper- 
ation, in reality, between God and finite minds. Here again 



392 " PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

do we stand on a field, within which philosophy can do little 
more than maintain a few great principles, clear their appli- 
cation as much as possible from the semblance of contradiction, 
and point out the present limitations of the powers of human 
reason itself. 

" Government " is a term which we can most properly apply 
only to God's relation to finite personalities. At this point, 
then, the philosophy of religion refers to psychology and to 
the philosophy of mind for its conception of the personality 
of man, — the one who is to be "governed." It refers also to 
that conception of God as an ethical personality, which it has 
already attained, for the further determination of the nature 
of the relation which He, the " Ruler," sustains to finite per- 
sonality. But it is especially from the philosophical study of 
human society and of human history that our doctrine of the 
divine government is to be derived. It is God immanent in 
human life, in its fundamental forms, its successive stages of 
development, its ideal and emotional springs, who is the Gov- 
ernor of men. All government, in the only true meaning of 
the word, implies the encitement, discipline, and control, of one 
person by another ; and, in the case of the divine government, 
of course, the inspiration, illumining, and discipline, of all per- 
sons by the one Personal and ethical Absolute. Here, again, 
an appeal to the philosophy of the Ideal (the perfectly blessed, 
the perfectly beautiful, and the perfectly good) must be taken 
in order to suggest the nature of that goal, or end to be gained, 
which government implies. 

The conceptions of revelation and inspiration are closely con- 
nected with the conception of divine government. A "mani- 
festation" of that unity which the "World-Ground" is, the 
most pronounced agnosticism seems to find it necessary to sup- 
pose. But a manifestation is possible only between minds. 
That which is manifested is an idea ; that to which the mani- 
festation is made, is an ideating mind. Certainly, then, it is 
not a long or difficult step from the more indefinite and obscure 



PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 393 

conception of a manifestation of the Absolute to the more defi- 
nite and clear conception of a revelation of God. Nor, if we 
regard God as the source of all life, and especially of all that 
spiritual life which is the essence of subjective religion, can 
the conception of inspiration fail to have a most valid and 
comprehensive use. As the objective factor, corresponding to 
inspiration, we find the " miracles " of revealed religion claim- 
ing a place in the historical manifestation of God. But the 
philosophy of religion is dependent upon metaphysics, in the 
two forms of the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of 
mind, for determining the modus operandi of the miracle, — 
so far as this is possible. 

The more precise, detailed, and defensible exposition of all 
the predicates of God, and of all the manifold forms of rela- 
tion in which He stands to the world, must be gained by 
philosophy in constant dependence upon the positive sciences. 
Among these sciences, the psychological and historical will 
necessarily hold the place of chief importance. 

Whatever be his personal faith, the student of philosophy 
cannot regard as unimportant those facts, truths, faiths, and 
institutions, as well as that type of ethical and eesthetical char- 
acter, which belong to historical Christianity. Those facts, 
truths, faiths, and institutions are of the greatest importance 
for determining the synthesis of philosophy. To neglect to give 
them in philosophy the place which they actually have in the 
life of the race, is to be guilty of an almost fatal neglect. By 
a " Christian " philosophy, we do not understand a system of 
dogmatic theology which accords with the prevalent orthodox 
type ; we understand rather such a view of the world, the soul, 
and God, of the dignity and destiny of man, and of the goal 
of history, as gives to the Christian truths and facts the place 
which is their due. In this way can philosophy be of more 
real assistance to the progress of Christianity than by timor- 
ous and ill-considered efforts to resume its mediaeval position 
of being ancillary to the dominant theology. In so far only 



394 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 

as what men call Christianity is accordant with the deepest 
and most comprehensive rational, ethical, and sesthetical life 
of man, will it continue to win and hold the allegiance of the 
race. But it is precisely upon this, the nature of true religion, 
that philosophy most fondly and confidently dwells. 

The value of that supreme synthesis, which the philosophy 
of religion makes, for the other departments of philosophy, and 
also for the particular sciences upon whose principles the 
synthesis is chiefly dependent, will doubtless be differently 
estimated by different minds. Certainly, from the conception 
of God — His being, predicates, and relations to the world — 
we cannot deduce the principles of the particular sciences. 
But it is our firm belief that they all gain inexpressibly in sig- 
nificance and value when they are considered in the light of 
this synthesis. This certified principle, or — if the objector 
prefer — this ennobling and captivating postulate, of a perfect 
ethical and sesthetical Life as the " Ground " of the world's 
being and progress, illumines and elevates the entire domain of 
human knowledge and human life. 

It is only in the reasoned faith in such a principle that one 
can find that relative harmony of the scientific and the practical, 
the side of thought and the side of belief and emotion, which 
is the security of the religious life. Pure thinking, it is true, 
will not find God ; neither will it satisfy conscience, or secure 
the redemption of the individual and of the race. But to do 
this, irrational and thoughtless feeling is also impotent, — 
whether called superstition or faith. Nor can busy doing and 
works done accomplish this salvation. For it is the life of 
reason, in all its variety and richness of content, which is 
according to the Life of the ever-living God. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

THEEE have been diversities of opinion, and divisions of 
thinkers into groups according to the character of their 
particular conclusions, from the beginning of speculative think- 
ing until the present time. In truth, the manifestation of 
more or less definite tendencies and the formation of schools 
follow from the very nature of philosophy. The freedom of 
the philosophical spirit, employing the subtlest analysis and 
the most comprehensive synthesis for the solution of the ulti- 
mate problems of all Being and all Knowledge, necessarily 
results in division. The spirit, the method, and the character 
of the subject-matter, are all responsible for that variety of 
systems which the history of philosophy reveals. 

The spirit of philosophy is freedom. From this it follows 
that each man's adherence to a particular tendency in philo- 
sophical discipline is largely a matter of choice. Or rather, 
the selection and formation of one's philosophical system are, 
in a peculiar way, the expression of one's whole rational and 
voluntary being. One may not, indeed, choose one's master 
or school in philosophy, and receive the content of one's specu- 
lative thinking, " ready made," as it were. On the contrary, to 
do this — however unwittingly — is to forfeit all favor from 
genuine philosophy. No other acquirement of the human 
mind is so improperly received without questioning from the 
hands of another. In attaining no other form of intellectual 
discipline, in reaching no other class of rational conclusions, 
are caution, patience, and willingness to await the growth of 



396 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

thought, so indispensable. At the same time philosophy, espe- 
cially on its synthetic side, requires the commitment of the en- 
tire man as does no other form of reasoning and knowledge. It 
requires also that arousing of the ethical, sesthetical, and even of 
the religious nature, which has its ground in the life of the will. 
The dependence of schools of philosophy, and of the adhe- 
rence of the individual thinker to any particular system of 
philosophy, upon freedom of choice has been frequently ob- 
served. In discussing the definition of philosophy we found 
that its appeal to the will and its relation to character have 
been recognized in the very terms applied to it. This is true, 
not only of the figurative descriptions of Plato (see page 9 f.), 
but of the more exact and critical discussion of Kant. " The 
kind of philosophy which one chooses," says Fichte, 1 " depends 
on the kind of man one is. For a philosophical system is not a 
dead bit of furniture which one can take to one's self or dispose 
of, as one pleases ; but it is endowed with a soul by the soul of 
the man who has it." "In the supreme and ultimate instance," 
says Schelling, 2 " there is no other Being than Willing. This 
is fundamental being, and to this all the predicates of such 
being conform. . . . The one effort of all philosophy is to find 
the highest expression for this." Herbart 3 goes so far as to 
declare that " the study of philosophy is a natural offspring of 
the totality we call ' the good Will ; ' this good Will is philos- 
ophy; only we must not confound the study of philosophy 
with philosophy itself." And less well-known names have in 
modern times declared themselves to the same effect. " To 
know the truth in spirit (by thought, or speculatively)," says 
one writer, " and to live in confiding intercourse with it, — this 
it is which the best of all philosophers have called ' to philos- 
ophize.' " The same view is expressed by another writer in 

1 Comp. his words in the Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre, Werke (ed. 
J. G. Fichte), ii. 155 f. 

2 Philosoph. Untersuchungen der menschlichen Freiheit, Werke, vii. 350. 

3 See also his remarks on the Practical Need of Philosophy, Kurze Encyklo- 
padie, pp. 3-29. 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 397 

the following language : " We have to distinguish two kinds of 
philosophy : the one manifests itself by the speech, and the 
other by the conduct, of the man. . . . This latter it is — the 
realization of wisdom by the man in his social intercourse — 
which has recently been brought, as philosophy in deed, to 
more general recognition." 

However much allowance be made for exaggeration, through 
noble enthusiasm for one's favorite pursuit and through laud- 
able desire to commend it, we cannot fail to recognize in the 
statements just quoted a most important truth. At bottom, 
philosophy implies the freedom of rational life. That diversity 
of the results of philosophizing, in which the different so-called 
schools of philosophy have their source, is due to this inherent 
freedom. 

The necessary method of philosophy is also such as to occa- 
sion the rise in its general domain of diverging tendencies and 
of different systems of thought. Philosophy results from the 
movement of rational life, by more searching reflective analysis 
and progressively more complete synthesis, toward a harmony 
of the principles of all Being and all Knowledge. In this 
movement three characteristic attitudes of mind toward exist- 
ing philosophical views are successively taken. Scepticism 
calls in question the tenets of the prevalent dogmatism ; criti- 
cism strives to detect the errors or defects, and also the factors 
of truth, which are combined in these tenets ; by a new syn- 
thesis, on the basis of this improved analysis, a new form of 
positive or dogmatic conclusions is obtained. 

In the use of this indispensable " method " of all philosophy 
is to be found a reason for the origin of more or less well 
defined philosophical systems or schools. The reflective analy- 
sis of different thinkers will vary in the degrees of its penetra- 
tion and comprehensiveness, — • whether its application refer to 
the whole round of current philosophical problems or to some 
particular problem among them all. The analysis of no one 
thinker will be able to penetrate all the depths, or to extend 



398 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

to all the confines, of the world of things and minds. Tor the 
human mind is limited ; but science is capable of unlimited 
growth, and reality is diversified and extended beyond all 
assignable bounds. It follows, then, that each adherent of a 
particular philosophical system, or of a particular solution to 
any great philosophical problem, will be one-sided or incom- 
plete in his analysis. He will be compelled to stop short of the 
point where he can hold all the factors and principles of Being 
and Knowledge firmly in his mental grasp. Accordingly, and 
as a matter of necessity, his synthetic philosophy will be 
one-sided and defective. It will relatively exaggerate some 
thoughts ; it will depress unduly, or wholly pass by, other im- 
portant thoughts. Finally, the impetus toward system-making 
which belongs to the spirit and mission of philosophy will 
cause a further exaggeration of those limitations of human 
thinking that are expressed in the very existence of philo- 
sophical schools. The progress of reason in self-knowledge 
cannot be made secure by obtaining the common consent of 
thinkers to defer all system-making in philosophy until the 
analysis of the factors shall be complete. Each system, when 
broken into fragments by the blows of scepticism and criticism, 
affords some " rough-hewn " stones for the structures that are 
to follow. By its necessary method, philosophy is compelled 
never to attain the complete realization of the idea which it 
pursues. This is its glory, and not its shame. It is a never- 
finished rational life. 

How variously might the foregoing reflections be illustrated 
by an appeal to the history of philosophical systems and 
tendencies ! At one time a synthesis of principles, obtained 
by so-called "pure thinking" and independently of empirical 
generalizations, has dominated philosophy. Dialectic has 
thus been identified with reality ; and a philosophical system 
consisting of abstractions has been the result. Deductive 
demonstration has at another time been employed as the only 
true philosophical method. Separated from all the constantly 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 399 

diversifying life with which inductive science deals, the most 
monstrous conclusions have thus been held to be "proved" 
beyond the possibility of doubt. The heart of living and con- 
crete realities has been cruelly crushed under the heel of these 
despots in the use of the demonstrative methods. But new 
systems of so-called inductive philosophy have sprung forth 
from the bosom of modern science itself. And now all the 
problems of the universal life and the ultimate reality are to be 
solved — if solved at all — by observation and tabulating of 
phenomena. Then we are given to understand that the nature 
of the soul, and even of the Absolute, may be inductively 
established by considering how decapitated frogs and bisected 
insects behave ; or how the vis medicatrix operates for the 
healing of a wounded crab or salamander. Then all analysis of 
psychological problems by introspection, and all effort to substi- 
tute tenable for untenable metaphysical views, are discredited. 
They are said to see " with the eyes of Peter Bell, which, seeing, 
see not," who fail to consider reflection and thought as means 
for penetrating the mysteries of the universe inferior to the 
study of the phenomena of " knee-jerk," or of the excited gan- 
glionic nerve-cells of a cat or a dog. 1 

It is, however, the character of the subject-matter in philos- 
ophy which is chiefly responsible for the division of the tenets 
established into rival systems and schools. Psychology is, in- 
deed, the indispensable propaedeutic of philosophical discipline. 
But all the particular sciences also offer their presuppositions 
and discovered principles, in the form of problems, to the 
student of philosophy. The goal toward which he strives is 
the rational system of them all. But they all are constantly, 
and to a large extent, undergoing a process of development. 
How then, since they all furnish material to philosophy, can 
it escape the limitations and the necessity of change which 
they impose ? 

Yet more potent reasons for the occurrence of schools in 

1 Comp. Am. Journal of Psychology, Nov., 1887, p. 162. 



400 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

philosophy may be derived from the consideration of the nature 
of its subject-matter. This consists wholly of problems, — of 
problems of the most profound and perplexing kind. All the 
more serious problems of each of the particular sciences concern 
that system of thinking which is philosophy. Even the prin- 
ciples which these sciences may take for granted become diffi- 
cult problems for the student of philosophy. The clearest and 
most satisfactory solution of some of these problems may seem 
to involve conclusions directly contradictory of equally clear 
and satisfactory solutions of other problems. Witness the task 
which biology sets to philosophical ethics when it attempts to 
bring the psychical processes, including the process of choice, 
under the principle of a vital mechanism. How easy would 
the task of philosophical system become, if only one could 
pass by those presuppositions or unverified generalizations of 
the particular sciences which seem especially to need its har- 
monizing agency ! One can frame a " system " in philosophy, if 
one will not be too particular about admitting unpleasant indi- 
vidual inquiries into membership in this system. We should 
all doubtless be of one school, if only Eeality were not so 
varied and — shall we say ? — inconsistent in its forms of 
manifestation. 

Nor should it be forgotten that the ultimate problem of phi- 
losophy is no other than the problem of the Infinite, — the 
inquiry into the being, relations, and modes in manifestation, of 
God. Surely He is a great deep, and who can fathom Him ? 
We obscurely feel the Presence, and hear the movement of His 
garments ; but His hand veils our eyes. And when the hand 
is removed, we can see no more than the vesture which clothes 
His retreating form. Little wonder need be felt, then, if the 
approaches which are made toward the place where this prob- 
lem can be clearly envisaged (not to say solved) are along di- 
verging lines ; or if the travellers on their way stop, in weariness 
or self-satisfaction, or because night has come, at places that 
lie distant from each other, and far removed from the goal. 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 401 

The classification of the actually existing schools of philoso- 
phy follows from the very nature of philosophy and of its 
method. These may all be described under three most general 
heads. They are Eealism, Idealism, and Dualism. Some of 
the other so-called schools or systems, such as dogmatism, 
scepticism, and criticism, are not (as has already been shown) 
properly to be so entitled at all. These are rather " moments " 
or tendencies in the spirit and method of all philosophy. And 
the undue emphasis of any of them, to the relative exclusion or 
suppression of the others, does not result in the formation of a 
school or system of philosophical tenets. Schools and systems, 
in philosophy as elsewhere, are to be classified — if at all — ac- 
cording to the divergent character of the positive tenets which 
constitute them. This is as true of those critical or sceptical 
propositions which sum up the results derived by the corre- 
sponding method of philosophical inquiry, as it is of the most 
extreme dogmatism. 

Much less are agnosticism and eclecticism to be classed with 
idealism, realism, and dualism, as co-ordinate schools or systems 
of philosophy. Agnosticism, in so far as it remains agnostic, is 
not to be distinguished from the sceptical or critical attitude 
of mind. So far as the agnostic becomes positive, he is to be 
classified as an idealist, a realist, or an adherent of dualism. 
And the positive conclusions which enable us to classify him — 
if such conclusions are to be discovered in his thinking — may 
be tinged with more or less of either the dogmatic, the sceptical, 
or the critical spirit and method. Thus Mr. Spencer has the 
undoubted right to classify himself among the realists (with 
the distinction that his realism is evolutionary and " trans- 
figured "), — albeit his position seems to many dogmatic rather 
than critical. 

What, however, is the natural and necessary relation, as to 
position and development, which exists amongst the three 
schools or systems of philosophical thinking ? In the attempt 
briefly to answer this question we shall expect to gain fur- 

26 



402 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

ther verification for the conclusions which have already been 
reached, when considering the several principal problems in 
analytical and synthetic philosophy. 

" Wherever," says Von Hartmann, 1 " we may look among the 
original philosophical or religious systems of the first rank, 
everywhere do we meet with the tendency to Monism ; and it 
is only stars of the second or third magnitude which find satis- 
faction in an external dualism or still greater division." The 
same writer thinks that in all philosophies of the modern epoch 
we see " this tendency to Monism more or less perfectly realized 
in one fashion or another." 2 As an inquiry in the history of 
philosophy, there can be little doubt that a general assent 
must be accorded to these statements of Hartmann. The 
Unity of all Eeality is, in some sort, a postulate of all modern 
philosophy ; and this postulate, as a silent and sometimes slug- 
gish assumption, enters into the organization of all experience 
as the task is attempted by the particular sciences. Moreover, 
that growing conviction as to the unity of the universe of 
phenomena, which expresses itself in the assumption of a uni- 
versal " reign of law," in admitted principles of all physical 
science, in the attempt to establish on scientific grounds a 
theory of psycho-physics and of the general relations of body 
and mind, and in the gradual drawing together of all the 
sciences, affords support to a monistic philosophy. Dualism, as 
a claimant for the position of a rational and consistent system 
of thinking, is undoubtedly being discredited by the progress of 
the age. 

It is further to be noted that Dualism arises — at least in 
modern times — almost altogether as a protest against some 
form of Monism, which is deemed extreme or dangerous. It is 
chiefly fear of the logical consequences of monistic conclusions 
which induces the modern student of philosophy even to consider 
the dualistic hypothesis. In the ancient times the world, from 

1 Philosophy of the Unconscious, Coupland's Translation, ii. 234. 

2 Ibid., p. 239. 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 403 

lack of scientific knowledge, seemed to men too diverse to be ac- 
counted for as the manifestation or revelation of a single prin- 
ciple. The search after a unity of the " World-Ground," which 
belongs to the very nature of reason itself, was therefore lim- 
ited in its range. Knowledge was limited as regards the laws 
and modes of energy which connect together the world of real 
beings. Imagination was limited in its flight. But it was 
those peoples who felt most keenly, though in a naive and un- 
reasoning way, certain great divergencies in the manifestations 
of reality, among which the first dualistic systems arose. Two 
fundamental and irremovable distinctions, on which indeed all 
our experience is based, gave occasion to these systems. They 
are the distinction between matter and mind, and the distinction 
between moral good and moral evil. 

It is the fear that these two distinctions will be lost or 
marred, and the fear of the theoretical or practical consequences 
of such an event, which impels many minds even now away 
from philosophical Monism. On the contrary, all the instincts 
of the philosophical mind, all the tendencies of modern scien- 
tific discovery and modern speculative thinking, all the influ- 
ences from the example of the greatest thinkers (materialistic, 
idealistic, pantheistic, theistic), are committed to the cause of 
monistic philosophy. Every attempt to establish two ultimate 
principles of all Knowledge and all Being, and every attempt 
to deal with any of the subordinate philosophical problems 
in a manner implying the existence of two such principles, is 
opposed to our modern thought. In conflict with the most 
tenable of the dualistic systems no fairly consistent monistic 
system can fail to secure the " prejudice " of philosophical 
thinking. In conflict with all dualistic systems, some form of 
a monistic system will ultimately maintain the supremacy. 

But why, it may be asked, if this is so, does Dualism con- 
tinue (at least — if we accept Hartmann's estimate — " among 
the stars of the second or third magnitude ") so persistently as 
a third system opposed to both of the other two ? Chiefly be- 



404 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

cause of the failure of current systems of Monism so to answer 
the problems of philosophy as to avoid contradicting certain 
apparently obvious facts and important truths. These facts 
and truths — we repeat — concern, first, the nature and rela- 
tions in reality of the body and the mind; and, second, the 
nature and relations of the morally good and the morally 
evil, as well as the ground which good and evil have in 
ultimate reality. Forms of Monism, which virtually contra- 
dict the distinction between the reality, me, and the reality 
that is not-me, cannot succeed in preventing the persistent 
recurrence of rival dualistic schemes. Monism must so con- 
struct its tenets as to preserve, or, at least, as not to contradict 
and destroy the truths implicated in this distinction ; otherwise, 
it cannot remain in possession of the rightful domain of phi- 
losophy. But even more imperative, and far more difficult, is 
the task imposed upon Monism by those dualistic considerations 
which emerge on ethical grounds. To blur, or reduce, or deny, 
valid ethical distinctions is to furnish an elixir of life to an 
expiring Dualism; it is even to equip it with an all-conquer- 
ing sword. No form of Monism can persistently maintain itself 
which erects its system upon the ruins of fundamental ethical 
principles and ideas. 

The science of mind, whether pursued from the experimental 
and physiological, or from the more purely philosophical point 
of view, has during the last half-century made rapid progress. 
A new form — if not of a science, at least of scientific research 
looking toward the establishment of a verifiable body of science 
— has been originated and pursued with ardor and brilliant 
results. This is psycho-physics, or physiological psychology. 
The very existence of such an attempt at science is indicative 
of a strong monistic tendency. Its conclusions, so far as it can 
be said to have established conclusions, favor a monistic phi- 
losophy. But what kind of a monistic philosophy ? Not such 
a kind, we believe, as denies the derived and dependent reality 
of either the body or the mind. Certainly not that modern and 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 405 

most captivating form of materialism, which refuses to recog- 
nize a real subject of the psychical states, but regards them all 
as only phenomenal and expressive of the complicated molecular 
and chemical relations and changes that belong to the atoms 
of the material organism. Against this form of Monism, psy- 
chology and philosophy will continue to erect the barriers of a 
scientific Dualism. Body and mind, — both will continue to 
hand in their irresistible claims to recognition as belonging to 
the world of finite reality. Nor will the scientific comprehen- 
sion of the nature and laws of either one of these two kinds of 
reality be furthered by refusing to recognize the facts. Each 
of the two is real, because each of the two maintains its place 
as capable of that reciprocally conditionating change of states 
which is indicative of all finite reality. 

But some form of philosophical Monism is indicated, we have 
already said, by the researches of psycho-physics and by that 
philosophy of mind which builds upon the principles ascer- 
tained by these researches. Realities correlated as are the body 
and the mind must have, as it were, common " ground." This 
conclusion is not based upon the false expectation that some 
one bond or connection between them will ever be envisaged 
as really existing. It is rather a conclusion constantly strength- 
ened by increasing information as to how infinitely varied, 
subtle, and comprehensive are the ties of reciprocal action which 
unite the two. They have their reality in the ultimate One 
Reality ; they have their interrelated lives as expressive of the 
one Life which is immanent in the two. Only by this suppo- 
sition can we satisfy all that the antiquated theories of Occa- 
sionalism or Pre-existent Harmony were invented to explain, as 
well as all the wondrous facts which modern psychology is 
bringing to the light. 

Doubtless the most difficult and serious work, which any true 
monistic system will have to achieve in overcoming the incon- 
sistencies of a dualistic philosophy, lies on ethical ground. We 
have already indicated what some of these difficulties are. All 



406 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

attempted solutions of them end largely in a confession of igno- 
rance and of mental inability to explain. But then this is a 
confession which Dualism has to make no less than Monism. 
We do not the better explain the genesis of moral evil — real, 
and in a world of reality — either by positing an eternal Prin- 
ciple of such evil over against God, or by denying the constant 
dependence of all finite personality upon the Life of God. On 
the contrary, Dualism increases our difficulties ; for it either 
admits an eternal schism in the very Being of Absolute Good, 
or else it attributes to the creature such an independence as 
sacrifices the infiniteness of the Divine Personality. 

Dualism may therefore be regarded as the guardian of the 
interests which are jeoparded by either a materialistic Eealism 
or an Idealism that resolves the extra-mental reality of the 
world of things into merely a series of objectifying psychical 
processes. It has a certain use and value in defending the 
rights of scientific physics against an incomplete philosophical 
analysis. It may also defend the rights of psychology against 
the unwarrantable encroachments of a materialistic view of 
nature. Whenever we are inclined to hasty generalizations 
concerning the relations of the " World-Ground " to finite minds, 
in the supposed interests of its unity and absoluteness, Dualism 
interposes grave objections derived from universal and valid 
ethical distinctions. It is thus both a warning and an incite- 
ment to philosophical Monism. But it contributes nothing of 
positive and lasting value to a true solution of cosmothetic 
problems ; nor can it ever so shape itself as to become a satis- 
factory philosophical system. In being consistently and per- 
sistently philosophical we are always seeking some form of 
monistic system. 

We give credence to Dualism, accordingly, only in order to 
be more cautious and penetrating in all our philosophical analy- 
sis, more patient and comprehensive in our attempts at a final 
philosophical synthesis. But as itself a claimant for adherence 
it can meet with little intelligent favor. It is scarcely too much 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 407 

to say that in the development of rational self-knowledge, and 
in the growth of philosophical system, this form of thinking is 
constantly being relegated to an inferior position. Doubtless 
its extinction will come when, but only when, Monism shall 
have made full room in its syntheses for those facts and prin- 
ciples upon which Dualism has hitherto maintained its partial 
conclusions. 

But if we are to look for a satisfactory philosophy in some 
form of Monism alone, to which of its two principal forms 
shall it be, — to Eealism, or to Idealism ? The answer from 
history seems to us inevitable. To neither of these two forms, 
with exclusion of the considerations upon which the other is 
based. So often as Eealism rears its structure of philosophical 
tenets in disregard of idealistic principles and postulates, so 
often does Idealism find it easy to pull this structure — with 
scorn for its shallow analysis and its ignorance of psychology 
and the history of philosophy — down to the ground. But, on 
the other hand, so often as Idealism pushes its conclusions to 
their logical issue in disregard of the principles and postulates 
to which Eealism appeals, so often does it find itself confuted 
by the " common-sense " of mankind, by the presuppositions of 
all science, and by the plainest ethical and sesthetical, as well as 
metaphysical, principles. Only some form of Monism that shall 
satisfy the facts and truths to which both Eealism and Ideal- 
ism appeal can occupy the place of true and final philosophy. 

An analysis of the primary act of knowledge has shown us 
the reality of knowing subject and of object known as impli- 
cated in that act. The actuality of the act of knowledge, with 
all that is implicated in it, is the common point of starting for 
both Eealism and Idealism. But the disregard or relative de- 
preciation of either of these two sets of factors is the source in 
which these rival views originate. The extreme conclusions of 
both constitute a call to a new and more fundamental analysis 
of knowledge ; and to another and more successful attempt to 
treat, by the process of reflection, all that knowledge implicates. 



408 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

Each extreme, moreover, contains, to some extent, the corrective 
for the other. The history of speculative thinking and of its 
results in the formation of philosophical system, shows this 
process of reciprocal limitation and correction constantly going 
on. The clear self-conscious effort of modern philosophy is 
directed toward a re-examination of the ground so as to secure, 
in a more complete and tenable form, the statement of the 
results of analysis. But it also aims at ultimately combining 
and systematizing these results so as to attain a true and com- 
prehensive view of the principles of all Knowledge and all 
Being. Some form of Monism which shall incorporate both 
Eealism and Idealism is, therefore, at present, the intelligent 
and avowed aim of philosophy. The tendency of modern 
thought toward a form of speculative thinking that is (if the 
compound may be pardoned) a " Eeal-Idealism " or an " Ideal- 
Bealism," is unmistakable. 

This tendency may be enforced and illustrated by consider- 
ing how the realistic and the idealistic conclusions supplement 
and correct each other at every stage of philosophical develop- 
ment. The same thing may also be accomplished by showing 
how both Eealism and Idealism, as two exclusive systems, con- 
ceal each other's postulates within themselves and perish by 
having their inner life consumed thereby. 

Eealism in its most primitive and crude (its boorish or sav- 
age) form assumes, without reflection or criticism, the existence 
of " Things " ready made. With this form of thinking, knowl- 
edge of things is likened to some sort of copying-off, by impres- 
sions made and received of these ready-made things. Only 
scanty reflection is needed to show that the so-called " impres- 
sions " of some of the senses cannot possibly stand the test' of 
this assumed correspondence to extra-mental reality. Thus 
crude natural Eealism is forced to permit of an important 
change. Idealism then establishes itself in possession of a cer- 
tain field won from its rival view of the world of things. 

But Eealism next retreats upon the proposition that some at 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 409 

least of the senses convey, under all ordinary and normal con- 
ditions, impressions which are truly representative of the quali- 
ties and relations of things, as these things exist external and 
ready made. The distinction between primary and secondary 
qualities of matter is therefore introduced. This distinction, 
instead of simply being recognized as helpful in psychological 
analysis and in the organization of experience with a world of 
phenomena, is assumed to be inherent in the very extra-mental 
reality of things. It is then said that "Things" may seem 
sweet or sour, ill-smelling or of pleasant odor, high or low in 
pitch, colored with this shade or that ; but they are really ex- 
tended and impenetrable, ponderous, etc. For the assurance 
that this statement is true, the last appeal may be made to 
touch and muscular "impressions." But the distinction in 
qualities, as immediately and indubitably involving the claims of 
this form of Eealism, is dissolved at once by the conclusions 
both of physical and of psychological science. Physics shows us 
— so it thinks — that the only real and extra-mental things are 
the atoms ; and the impressions of things — the " Things " 
hitherto assumed to be in some sort immediately known as 
they really are — come far short of representing the reality, 
even as respects its so-called primary qualities. While psy- 
chology points out on what conditions and by what processes 
the immediate cognition of extended and impenetrable and ex- 
ternal things is developed, under the laws of the mind's life. 
Thus is new territory brought within the conquests of Idealism. 
Just at this point realistic thinking is accustomed, being 
hard pressed by idealistic truths, to make a kind of dash side- 
ways, and take refuge in the thinnest shell of a critical conclu- 
sion. To change the figure of speech, it mixes a smattering 
of physiology with an imperfect psychological and philosophical 
analysis, and so compounds a new kind of Eealism. But this 
new tenet can make no successful appeal to " common-sense," 
for it has departed too far along the sceptical and critical road 
from the accepted beliefs of unreflecting mankind. And it also 



410 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

lacks justification from science and philosophy, because it has 
prematurely and unwarrantably called a halt in the journey 
along this road. Eealism now admits that we have no imme- 
diate knowledge of any really external thing. But what we do 
immediately know, it claims, is our own excited and sentient 
organism. Here physiology and psychology combine to show 
that the excited organism is precisely what no man ever imme- 
diately knows. By sight, for example, the external parts of our 
own bodies are no more immediately known than are the objects 
separable from our bodies. And by sight no man ever immedi- 
ately knew his own sentient retina, or the organism concerned 
in vision (optic nerve-tracts and chiasm, corpora-quadrigemina, 
and upper occipital lobe) posterior and superior thereto. How 
far we are from such immediate knowledge through the skin is 
made perfectly obvious by the modern experimental researches 
into the development of that wonderful organ and of the knowl- 
edge of which it is the organ. And yet this kind of Eealism 
characterizes all of the modified Scotch school, including even 
Sir William Hamilton, who vacillated between it and another 
equally untenable view. It is now practically driven from the 
field by the appropriate idealistic considerations. 

And now a yet more lordly form of Eealism appears, and in 
the name of physical science claims to erect itself upon founda- 
tions quite unassailable by philosophical Idealism. It calls 
itself " physical Eealism," in honor of its assumed derivation 
from the kind of science whose name it bears. 1 It consists of a 
system of inferences, from "data of sense," to "physical objects 
of science." It authoritatively describes the world of extra- 
mental reality in the well-known terms of " atoms," " energy " 

1 See, for example, a work bearing this title : " Physical Eealism : Being an 
Analytical Philosophy from the Physical Objects of Science to the Physical Data 
of Sense," by Thomas Case, M.A. London, 1889. The author of this volume 
seems to hold both the last two realistic hypotheses as to the nature of the object 
known as really existent, by the mind. A new philosophy is proposed by this 
author, which infers physical objects without from "physical data within ;" and 
the physical data within are the known physical parts of the nervous system. 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 41 1 

potential and kinetic, physical "causation" and "law," etc. 
Thus is disclosed to us a world that really is widely and won- 
derfully different from the world that appears to us. It even 
involves many assumed realities that, judging by all the data 
of sense only, cannot possibly have being at all. 

But the considerations upon which the rival idealistic view re- 
lies follow pitilessly this form of Eealism as it retreats from the 
natural and universal interpretation of the data of sense into a 
sphere of imagination and inference where only expert students 
of the particular sciences have any success in the attempt to fol- 
low. Idealism, by a further process of analysis, dissolves these 
" objects of science " into a content and a form, both of which are 
ascribed to the constitution of the mind, but cannot be represen- 
tative of ready-made and extra-mental reality. For the content 
— namely, the " data of sense " — is to be regarded as states of 
the conscious mind ; and by calling it " physical " or " objective " 
we do not escape this conclusion. And " inferences " from these 
data to " physical objects of science " are subjective activities 
which, in themselves, can never take us out of the realm of 
mental form and mental law. But if scientific Eealism falls 
back upon the immediate cognition or belief, which is attached 
to the " data of sense," it becomes of all forms of Eealism the 
most difficult to defend against the attacks of Idealism. For 
what is " given " in the " data of sense," whether in the form 
of knowledge or belief, is as far as possible removed from the 
world of realities in which physical science lives and moves. 
This world is distinctly not immediately known by any one; 
nor is it believed in with certainty of conviction by every one. 
It is rather a hypothetical world, resulting from the trained 
imagination and from the subtle, difficult, and often exceed- 
ingly doubtful, inferences of a very few minds. 

It may be said, to be sure, that the knowledge of the world 
is constantly being more firmly established by the exercise of 
all that power of prediction and explanation in which physical 
science rejoices. But of itself — Idealism may answer — this 



412 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

only proves the logical consistency of the scientific ideas, the 
well-grounded but still subjective validity of the propositions 
we have learned to make concerning certain objects of knowl- 
edge. Of itself, it does not answer any of our inquiries con- 
cerning the genesis, nature, and validity of our so-called per- 
ceptions, representative images, and conceptions of " Things." 

The debate between these two great schools of philosophy 
cannot be settled by an appeal to physical science. The legiti- 
mate conclusions of physical science will remain unchanged 
within their own sphere, whether Idealism or Kealism shall 
obtain the upper hand in the domain of philosophy. Nor can 
a " new " third philosophy of the realistic order be founded, in 
the name of physical science, which shall resist with peculiar 
success the attacks of the subtler forms of the idealistic theory. 

Finally, Eealism — perhaps growing desperate and losing some 
of the semblance of self-control — may rest its case, as against 
Idealism, upon moral and religious faith. It may cry out : 
" What ! would you do away with the reality of moral distinc- 
tions ? Would you resolve God into a shadowy mental image, 
or into a mere conception somewhat more consistently and 
elaborately formed ? That there is force and meaning in this 
outcry, however much it resembles the confession of a cause 
that is lost in the field where the cold steel of ratiocination 
carries the day, we do not doubt. But Idealism, in its turn, 
may reply with a similar appeal to prejudice. It may cry out 
against Eealism as materialistic. For it, too, has not infrequently 
appeared in history as the champion of orthodoxy of morals and 
religion. 

In spite of the prevalence of Aristotelianism, as the author- 
ized philosophy of the Church in the Middle Ages, there were 
not wanting occasions when Platonism gained the ascendency 
in ecclesiastical circles. The extreme Idealism of the disciples 
of Descartes was propounded in the interests of religious faith, 
Berkeley avowedly promulgated his theory of sense-perception, 
and then extended his conclusions from it into the realm of the 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 413 

philosophy of nature, as an antidote for the prevalent material- 
ism of his day. By far the greatest of all American theologians, 
Jonathan Edwards, seems obviously to have been in philosophy 
a " cosmothetic Idealist " of the most pronounced sort. If the 
dangers of Idealism are great, and lie in the direction of Panthe- 
ism, no less great are the dangers of Eealism in the direction 
of Materialism. 

In every form of Eealism, then, the considerations on which 
Idealism relies can be effectively used to annul all the conclu- 
sions which leave these considerations out of the account. The 
history of philosophy, and the very nature of the philosophical 
method, evince the truth of this remark. 

On the other hand, something similar may be shown to hold 
true of all the " pure " or extreme positions of Idealism. They, 
too, may be proved either to have been taken in disregard of 
certain primary facts and indubitable principles, or else to 
hold concealed within them certain realistic postulates which 
finally work the change of the positions themselves. 

We have already seen how even the most primary act of 
knowledge, on analysis, postulates among the " data of sense " 
the reality of that object which is given as not-me, to the know- 
ing mind. To insist, as Idealism rightly does, upon the truth 
that the object cannot be given to the mind without an activity 
of the being to whom it is given, according to constitutional 
laws of its being, does not destroy the bearing of the supple- 
mentary fact. It is impossible for the mind to regard this object, 
thus given, otherwise than as an extra-mental being. Nor is 
this " impossibility " to be satisfied by resolving it into an 
impotency. The knowledge of the not-me is rather, primarily, 
a potency of the mind to apprehend being other than itself, 
— a potency of the knowledge of the reality of the " Thing " 
known. 

Furthermore, the fact that the knowledge of things, when 
compared with the mere having of sensations or other mental 
states, must be regarded as a complex and later development 



414 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

of the mind, does not annul or weaken the force of the postu- 
lates that are implicated in all knowledge. This process of 
becoming able to know belongs to the growth of reason itself. 
What reason is, however, and what it guarantees, — these are 
questions that cannot be settled merely by giving an historical 
description of the factors and stages of its growth. The pos- 
tulated reality of the " Thing " known is a result of rational 
activity that cannot be left out of the account. And so often 
as, in the effort to account for this result, Idealism refers to the 
admitted fact that the mind, which is active in perceiving, is 
also active in postulating, so often will Eealism have occasion 
to refer to the other fact, that the object perceived is postulated 
as a reality not-myselL 

It is only by recognizing a similar postulate, already in force, 
that Idealism itself can reach any knowledge of a mind, which 
may serve as the subject of changing psychical states. Every 
claim to dispense with this postulate and, at the same time, 
secure an immediate and sure knowledge of mental reality, is 
psychologically indefensible. Thus the scepticism which Ideal- 
ism displays toward the extra-mental reality of the external 
object is turned against the ideating mind. It is equally pow- 
erful there. As to the actuality of the individual mental state, 
there can be, of course, no doubt. As little doubt can there be 
that every mental state is necessarily thought of as referable to 
a subject of all the states, — to a mind. But the reference is 
itself a mental act ; and the necessity of thinking all mental acts 
and states as referable to a subject of them all, may itself be 
called by the sceptical critic an impotency of thought. Thus is 
Idealism, after it has denied the extra-mental reality of the exter- 
nal object, forced by scepticism to question also the extra-mental 
reality of the so-called subject of the ideas. Nothing but absolute 
Solipsism (the bare affirmation of the truth, As I think, I am 
thinking, and there is nothing known to be actual besides my 
thinking) seems inevitable. But reason cannot thus abjure its 
confidence in itself. It revolts from this extreme conclusion of 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 415 

a sceptical Idealism. It affirms again its original postulate, as 
implicated in its own act of knowledge, and as applicable both 
to itself and to its own external object. This is equivalent to 
the realistic affirmation ; in some sort, both " I " and the 
" Things " of my knowledge are real. But it belongs to further 
metaphysical analysis to tell, if possible, precisely how much 
must be included in this statement. 

The progressive organization of experience involves a con- 
stant application and extension, as it were, of the same realistic 
postulate. In one sense of the words it may be said that, as 
we gain experience, we more clearly and certainly know that 
things really and extra-mentally are, and that we ourselves are 
real psychical existences, subjects of a developing psychical life. 
On the other hand, it must also be admitted that the progressive 
organization of experience gives us no new means of knowing 
the truth of our fundamental postulate. We certainly can be 
said to gain vastly in knowledge of the modes of action and the 
changing relations of real beings. Perhaps there is no objection 
to saying that our conviction of the extra-mental reality of 
things, and of other minds, is deepened and confirmed with the 
progressive organization of experience. But neither ordinary 
knowledge nor accumulations of scientific truth can serve to 
"prove" anew such a reality for that which is given to my 
mind as not-me, — whether material things or other minds. 
Inferences cannot get behind or beneath the postulate, to con- 
firm or to support it. Inferences all imply the postulate. They 
can only apply it. By the application the self-conscious reason 
becomes more familiar, as it were, with its own fundamental 
laws. When we reason up to it, or down to it, we find the 
postulate there. 

Accordingly, any form of Idealism which leaves the realistic 
factors and postulates out of the account ends in conclusions 
which reason deems absurd. It fails in the attempts to explain 
the progressive organization of experience. This organization 
of experience necessarily implies the existence of other minds 



416 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

than mine. In whatever sense I am real, in that same sense 
they are equally real. Thus much is implied in all intercourse 
of man with his fellows, — intellectual, social, political, religious. 
The most " Egoistical Idealism " will not venture to deny to 
you that you, in some sort, really exist. 

But the only bridge of knowledge I have from myself to the 
reality of other minds is laid, as it were, over their material 
bodies. By inferences — subtle, repeated, remote, and often 
doubtful — one mind may be said to know that other minds 
are ; that they as really are as it is itself, and are really, in 
essential qualities, as itself. All of these inferences are based 
upon the knowledge of the " Things " which we call the bodies 
inhabited by other minds. If, then, Idealism will not fling 
itself out upon this realistic postulate, it cannot logically arrive 
at the conclusion that other minds have an existence extra- 
mental to its own. The postulate makes a safe and logical 
passage only when it includes the extra-mental reality of the 
bodily things, from whose changes the existence of the minds 
is inferred. 

It would be quite too absurd, however, to hold that no other 
minds than ourselves exist, — that there is nought, even of that 
sort of being we call a soul, except our own poor example of 
such being. For at this point Idealism seems to cut ethics, 
aesthetics, and religion, up by the roots. Without real minds, 
existing in relations of intercommunication through really exis- 
tent material means, no conduct or ethical law of conduct is pos- 
sible. In other connection (page 186 f.) we have seen how the 
postulate of practical reason which Kant proposes implies the 
existence in extra-mental reality of a whole scheme of metaphy- 
sical entities and relations. " Pure " Idealism cannot even say, 
in the language attributed to Omar Khayyam, — 

" We are no other than a moving row 
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go ; " 

for there is no knowledge, or chance for knowledge, that we 
exist, except as an imaging process of the individual Ego. 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 417 

Doubtless the successful appeal of polemical Eealism to 
sesthetical or religious prejudices rests upon a certain basis of 
truth. The only perfectly " pure " and logical form of Idealism 
is a sceptical Solipsism which has gone to the lengths of deny- 
ing all cognition of reality except, or beyond, the actuality of 
the self-consciously recognized psychical state belonging here 
and now to the individual subject. Such Idealism is, of course, 
inconsistent with the recognition of any real beauty in nature, 
or of any really beautiful and good Absolute One, whom we 
may worship as ^-ourselves, as indeed God. 

Those devoted to the, pursuit of the physical sciences are 
accustomed to imagine that they are dealing with objects which 
have some peculiar claim to escape from the ravages of a 
thorough idealistic construction of philosophy. There could 
not well be a greater mistake. To be sure, such a philosophy 
would reduce the body of physical science, and the universe 
which is its object of research and discovery, to the similitude 
of a dream. But why should any peculiarly strong objection 
be felt to this ? If our own bodies are dreams, we need not 
mourn the dream-like and phantasmagorical character of the 
heavenly bodies. We know nothing of the latter except through 
changes in the former. We need care nothing as to their reality 
except as they affect the happiness of our dream. As dream- 
objects they serve their purpose as well as they would were 
they those vast and distant extra-mental realities which science 
assumes them to be. If we are to lose from knowledge the 
reality of friend and foe, of wife and mother and child, and yet 
the dream continues pleasant, we can easily dispense with the 
reality of the fixed stars. All that physical science can claim, 
or aim to secure, as compared with ordinary knowledge, is a 
superior consistency and comprehensiveness for its dream. 

And, indeed, the reasons why we recoil from regarding all 
external nature as purely phantasmagorical are not scientific 
at all. Besides the one metaphysical reason, they are rather 
ethical, sesthetical, and religious. The mind, indeed, insists on 

27 



418 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

carrying this postulate which enters into the more primary acts 
of cognition over into the complex, inferential, and derived 
knowledge of the physical sciences. Idealism, as well as Eeal- 
ism, feels itself compelled to recognize the force of this impulse. 
It therefore takes the form sometimes called cosmothetic ; or it 
becomes of the absolute and metaphysical kind. It, too, affirms 
as the final conclusion of all philosophical searching the exist- 
ence, eatfm-mentally, of a Unity of Eeality. Only it considers 
this alone real Being that is not-me, to be some Ideal, some 
frankly or secretly assumed spiritual Unity. 

The conclusion derived from the foregoing brief sketch of the 
antagonistic positions of Idealism and Eealism, as inherent in 
the contrasted solutions which they give to the different philo- 
sophical problems, might be confirmed by an appeal to the 
history of philosophy. History shows the two engaged in the 
process of correcting each other's faults, and supplying each 
other's deficiencies, from the beginning of speculative thinking 
until now. The process has resulted in enrichiDg the content 
of the ideas held by both classes of schools. It has impelled 
each of the two onward in the effort to be more comprehensive, 
so as to admit into itself all the true data and conclusions 
of the other. History, therefore, shows the two rival systems 
approaching a common ground of standing. And that ground 
of standing can be no other than such a monistic philosophy as 
shall hold in harmony all the truths upon which both Eealism 
and Idealism rely. 

In fact, a purely realistic or a purely idealistic system of 
philosophy cannot be maintained. Any position approaching 
more or less nearly that of complete and uncompromising 
Eealism, or the same kind of Idealism, is tenable only as a 
point of momentary standing. It is reached and held only as a 
step in the larger progress of synthetic philosophy. Every such 
position, whether taken in the name of Eealism or in the name 
of Idealism, is but a point marked in the progress of the human 
mind toward a final and satisfactory Monism. This Monism 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 41 9 

must find the Unity of all Being and Knowledge, the World- 
Ground, in an ideal Keality, a realized Ideal. Such an One is 
nothing else than some rational, self-conscious, and personal 
Life. 

But — it may be asked — after we have come to this some- 
what barren conclusion, what remains for philosophy to do ? 
And in case we accept the conclusion, what better off are we in 
respect to affording a solution of the separate philosophical 
problems, — those " riddles by which our mind is oppressed in 
life, and about which we are forcibly compelled to some view or 
other, in order to be able really to live at all " ? The answer to 
the last of these two questions is : " Much every way ; " and the 
answer to the first of them is : " Much in many ways." 

After the supreme task of philosophy has been, as it were 
provisionally, performed, every particular problem in the domain 
of philosophy requires the same detailed examination upon an 
inductive basis and by the method which is peculiar to philoso- 
phy, as before. But the significance of every problem is en- 
larged and heightened by our possession of the truth of this 
supreme synthesis. Every problem also, as it becomes more 
clearly understood, contributes something new and persuasive 
toward the proof of the synthesis itself. To speak from the 
point of view of religion, all things have their meaning made 
deeper and broader by a rational faith in God ; and, on the 
other hand, the understanding of all things else adds support 
and clearness to our faith in God. 

Even of the detailed problems of psychology and philosophy 
the remark just made holds true. It is true, for example, of 
the problem of sense-perception. The vision of the Absolute is 
not, indeed, to be attained through the eye of sense ; neither is 
it the ear of flesh and bone which hears and recognizes His 
voice. But to one who considers the experience of knowledge 
by the senses, from the higher philosophical point of view, the 
presence of the Absolute, the real Being that is the reality of all 
things and the validation of all knowledge, is to be recognized 



420 TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 

even here. From the beginning of philosophical speculation 
upon this problem until the present time, the infinite mystery 
of existence which it involves has been recognized. And what 
is true of this problem of sense-perception is certainly true of 
all the problems of philosophy. 

We find then a proof of the substantial truthfulness of the 
conclusions reached by our examination, in the continued 
recurrence and constant but gradually softening antagonisms 
of the main philosophical schools and tendencies. Dualism is 
yielding, in history and in the judgment-halls of reason, to a 
monistic philosophy. Realism and Idealism are — starting from 
divergent points of view and contesting all along the way a 
series of antagonistic positions — approaching the goal of such 
a Monism as shall include the truth of both. It is this 
philosophy to which the physical and the psychological sciences 
point the way. In the same direction we are urged by the 
necessities that flow from our ethical, sesthetical, and religious 
ideals. 

The cry has recently been raised in our ears for the forming 
of a distinctively " American " philosophy. Such a cry can 
never be understood as other than, in large measure, ad captan- 
dum. Yet its existence as a fact, and the audience it receives, 
are most encouraging to those engaged in the study of philoso- 
phy. The cry is a recognition of an awakening interest, 
throughout our land, in philosophical pursuits. But this 
awakening of interest is not peculiar to us. The earnest pur- 
suit and rapid progress of those particular sciences, on which 
philosophy depends, have not been without result in behalf of 
her larger interests and higher development. A hand, held out 
to philosophy by the students of these sciences, is plainly visi- 
ble in every land where it and they have been dwelling together, 
— not always in unity. But a real unity of interests belongs 
to both. And by the combined and persistent efforts of investi- 
gators in these sciences, and of those who have felt that impulse 



TENDENCIES AND SCHOOLS IN PHILOSOPHY. 421 

toward philosophy which Plato called Eros, a wonderful devel- 
opment in the self-knowledge of reason may he expected to 
result. But an " American ". philosophy we may no more seek 
than an American science or an American theology. A true 
and lofty philosophical thinking, based upon all the results in- 
ductively established by all the world's science, and " ancillary " 
to theology in another than the scholastic way, shall be our 
aim. That it can scarcely lead to a new form of Dualism, the 
teaching of historical tendencies, and the very profoundest call 
of reason, should make sufficiently plain. 



INDEX. 



Absolute, the, in philosophical discus- 
sion, 5, 368 f., 387 f. ; unity of the, 
77 f., 405 f. ; as " World-Ground," 
368 f., 374 f ., 388 f. ; self-conscious- 
ness of, 369 f., 374 f., 376 f. ; ethical 
being of, 379 f., 386 f. 

^Esthetics, a branch of philosophy, 
174 f., 324-350; the end in, 315 f., 
348 f. ; the Ideal of, 329 f., 334 f., 
346 f. ; use of imagination in, 335 f., 
344. 

Agnosticism, not a philosophy, 121, 140 ; 
the Spencerian, 141 f. 

Aristotle, his conception of philosophy, 
4, 10 f., 18 f. ; the founder of sciences, 
12 f., 149; influence of, 149 f. 

Art, different forms of, 339 f . ; freedom 
of, 344. 



Beautiful, the, appreciation of, 324 f., 
331 f., 348; distinguished from the 
agreeable, 327 ; judgment of, 329 f., 
336 f. ; relation of, to conduct, 333 f. ; 
essential nature of, 337 f., 342 f., 346. 

Being, the Hegelian, 195 f. ; identity 
of, with knowledge, 226 f., 231. 

Beneke, his view of psychology, 90. 

Biology, relation of, to philosophy, 34 f., 
60 f., 68 f., 271 f.; nature of, 71 f., 
271 f. 



Categories, the, 227 f., 311 f. 
Causality, category of, 236 f. 
Chalybaus, on the method of philosophy, 

122 f. 
Change, category of, 239 f. ; reality of, 

245 f. ; subject of, 245 f., 258 f. 



Cognition. See Knowledge. 

Comte, Auguste, his view of philosophy, 

25. 
Criticism, in philosophy, 148, 151 f . ; of 

Kant and since, 153 f. 



Descartes, his view of philosophy, 13 ; 

method of, 124 f., 224 f. ; the maxim 

of, 224 f. 
Dogmatism, as a method in philosophy, 

146 f., 150 f. 
Dualism, a form of philosophy, 402, 

406 f. 



Eclecticism, not a method in phi- 
losophy, 132 f., 140. 

Ego. See Mind. 

Energy, definition of, 75, 262 ; as predi- 
cate of matter, 262 f. ; kinds of, 263. 

Epicurus, his view of philosophy, 12. 

Epistemology. See Noetics. 

Ethics, relation of, to philosophy, 43 f ., 
173 f., 293 f.; nature of, 100 f., 288 f., 
293 ; philosophy of, 288-323 ; method 
of, 294 f. ; the eudasmonistic, 318 f., 
322 f. 



Ferrier, on the divisions of philosophy, 
166 f. 

Fichte, his view of philosophy, 21 f., 396. 

Finality, the category of, 248 f. ; inhe- 
rent in matter, 266 f. 

Fischer, Kuno, his definition of phi- 

. losophy, 22. 

Force. See Energy. 



424 



INDEX. 



God, as " World-Ground," 364 f ., 372 f ., 
378 ; ontological argument for, 364 f ., 
387 f. ; cosmological argument for, 
365 ; teleological argument for, 365 f. ; 
a self-conscious Life, 370 f., 382 f . ; 
386 f., 418 f. ; predicates of, 389 f.; 
relations of, to the world, 390 f . 



Harris, Wm. T., his view of philoso- 
phy, 23, 29. 

Hartmann, on induction in philosophy, 
136 ; and the nature of the Absolute, 
388 ; on Monism, 402. 

Hegel, on the English conception of 
philosophy, 14 f. ; his own view, 19, 
179 ; on the divisions of philosophy, 
164 f. ; theory of knowledge, 179 f. ; 
and doctrine of Being, 195 f. 

Helmholtz, on the conception of science, 
66. 

Herbart, on the nature of the Ego, 41 f., 
281 f. ; his view of psychology, 88 f ., 
281 f., 396 ; on the neglect of philo- 
sophy, 129 ; the divisions of philoso- 
phy, 165 ; and religion, 351. 

Hobbes, his view of philosophy, 14. 

Hodgson, Shadworth H., his view of 
philosophy, 22 f. ; on distinction of 
science from philosophy, 56, also 
psychology, 1 04 f . , on consciousness, 
225 f . ; on philosophy and religion, 
357. 

Huxley, on biological sciences, 271 f. 



Idea, the Platonic, 4, 8, 18 f. 

Idealism, a fundamental form of philo- 
sophy, 401 f., 407 f., 411, 414. 

Ideals, the, of reason, 173 f. ; the philo- 
sophy of, 290 f. ; the moral, 305 f., 
312 f. ; the aesthetical, 334 f., 341 f., 
349 f. 

Identity, the principle of, 206 f. 

Immortality, the question of, 38 f. 

Inertia, conception of, 265 f. 



Kant, his view of philosophy, 16f., 24 
153, 164 f. ; problem of his "Critique,' 
87, 124, 178, 185; criticism of, 153 f. 
on the divisions of philosophy, 164f. 
on the theory of knowledge, 1 78 f . 
185 f.; criticized by Hegel, 179 f. 



categorical imperative of, 1 87 f . ; on 
doctrine of Ding-an-sich, 203 f ., 234 f . 
Knowledge, stages of, 59 f., 193, 200 f, 
211; systematizing of, 67 f . ; problem 
of, 159, 170 f, 182 f., 188 f., 192 f.; 
theory of, 178-217 ; sceptical view of, 
188 f.; the scientific, 200 f. ; elabora- 
tion of, 211 f.; limitations of, 213 f.; 
certification of, 216 f. ; identity of, 
with Being, 226, 231. 



Leibnitz, his view of philosophy, 13 f. 

Lewes, his view of philosophy, 25, 51 f , 
56 ; and of metaphysics, 143 f. 

Life, problem of its origin, 33 f. ; and 
nature, 60 f ., 68 f . 

Locke, his view of philosophy, 13 f., 
125 ; nature of the philosophy of, 85 f. 

Logic, nature of, 99 f . ; in philosophical 
method, 112. 

Lotze, on the need of philosophy, 23 ; 
and its aim, 128 ; view of Meta- 
physics, 222 f. ; on the reality of 
change, 240 f . ; on the self -conscious- 
ness of the Absolute, 378. 



Mass, conception of, 261 f. 

Matter, nature of, 73 f., 258 f. ; as sub- 
ject of change, 258 f . ; constitution 
of, 267 f. 

Maxwell, Clerk, on nature of matter, 
260. 

Mechanics, relation of, to philosophy, 
73. 

Metaphysics, relation of, to psychology, 
88 f . ; as a branch of philosophy, 
172 f., 218-253, 254 f. ; the problem 
of, 220 f ., 254 f. ; the two branches of, 
254 ; in philosophy of religion, 360 f. 

Mill, J. S., his view of philosophy, 86 ; 
definition of substance, 232 f . 

Mind, the nature of, 38 f., 277 f., 279 f . ; 
the cognition of, 98 f., 194, 230; the 
philosophy of, 274-287 ; unity of, 
279 ; relation of, to matter, 284 f. 

Monism, the neo-Platonic, 150; the 
leading form of modern philosophy, 
402 f. 



Nature, unity of, 247 ; philosophy of, 
254-274. 



INDEX. 



425 



Newton, his view of philosophy, 14. 

Noetics, founded by Kant, 17 f., 171 ; 
as a branch of philosophy, 171 f., 
178 f., 182 f . ; relation of, to psy- 
chology, 192 f., 197 f. 

Number, category of, 239, 243 f. 



Optimism, the arguments for, 384 f. 

Ought, conception of the, 307 f. ; feel- 
ing of the, 308 f. ; relation of, to the 
idea of Right, 311 f., 314 f. 



Perception, problem of, 93 f., 155 f., 
195 f. 

Pessimism, of Schopenhauer and Hart- 
mann, 383 f. 

Philosophy, definition of, 1 f., 6 f., 13 f ., 
16 f., 27 ; Plato's view of, 4, 8 f. ; Aris- 
totle's view of, 4, 10 f. ; relation of, to 
theology, 4 f . ; kindred terms among 
the Greeks, 6 f. ; relation to science, 
8 f ., 26, 32, 55-83 ; called " First " 
by Aristotle, 10 f. ; Roman view of, 
12; view of, in Middle and Modern 
eras, 13 f. ; divisions of, 16, 163-177 ; 
sources of, 29 f., 38 f., 45 f. ; relation 
of, to psychology, 40 f., 82, 84-111, 
273 f. ; problem of, 49 f., 273 f. ; 
spirit and method of, 112-139, 395, 
397; analytic, 119, 134; synthetic, 
120 f., 135, 137 f., 154, 276, 399; 
freedom of, 123 f. ; progressiveness 
of, 132, 190; history of, 133 f . ; of 
the Ideal, 290 f., 314 f., 394; schools 
of, 395, 412 ; fundamental forms of 
401 ; proposal to Americanize, 420 f. 

Philosophy of Religion, nature of, 161 f., 
351 f . ; a department of philosophy, 
175 f., 351-394. 

Plato, his view of philosophy, 4, 8 f., 
18 f.; use of the terms "philosophy," 
etc., 7 f. 

Principle of Sufficient Reason, 209 f. 

Psychology, relation of, to philosophy, 
40 f., 63 f., 82, 84 f., 102 f., 109, 
275 f. ; since Kant in Germany, 86 ; 
the Herbartian, 88 f. ; " without a 
soul," 91 f. ; includes logic and ethics, 
99 f., 293 f. ; peculiar domain of, 
103 f. ; method of, 114; postulates 
of, 120. 



Quality, category of, 235 f. 



Realism, the, of Herbert Spencer, 141 f., 
401 ; a fundamental form of philo- 
sophy, 401, 407 f. ; that called " phys- 
ical," 410. 

Reality, philosophical knowledge of, 
9 f., 18 f., 45 f., 220, 362 ; the unity 
of, 52, 276 f., 337, 362, 367 f., 392, 
402; a postulate of philosophy, 121 f. ; 
metaphysical problem concerning, 
223 f. 

Relation, category of, 238 f. 

Religion, philosophy of, 351-394; rela- 
tion of, to philosophy, 356 f. ; the life 
of, 357 ; sources of, 358 f. ; the prob- 
lem of, 363 f. 

Right, the idea of, a category, 309 f. ; 
the content of, 316 ; same as the mor- 
ally Good, 317. 



Scepticism, as a method in philosophy, 
146, 150 f. ; in Greece, 149; since 
Kant, 153 f., 156; as respects knowl- 
edge, 184 f. 

Schelling, on the aim of philosophy, 
396. 

Schleiermacher, his view of philosophy, 
19 f. 

Schopenhauer, his view of philosophy, 
20 ; of the nature of " the Ought," 
44 f. ; of the principle of sufficient 
reason, 209 f ; on the Absolute as 
Will, 388. 

Science, relation of, to philosophy, 10 f., 
55 f., 200 ; essential nature of, 65 f., 
80 f. ; spirit of, 118; the knowledge 
belonging to, 200 f., 258 f. 

Self. See Mind. 

Self-consciousness, the problem of, 97, 
157. 

Seneca, his view of philosophy, 12. 

Seth, Professor, on distinction of psy- 
chology and philosophy, 106. 

Space, category of, 249 f. 

Spencer, Herbert, on nature of science, 
65 f. ; the Realism of, 141. 

Spinoza, his view of philosophy, 13 ; 
dogmatism of, 152. 

Socrates, the philosophy of, 148 f. 

Stuckenberg, on distinction of psycho- 
logy and philosophy, 107 f. 



426 



INDEX. 



Substantiality, category of, 223 f., 
232 f. ; J. S. Mill's definition of, 232 f. 



Theology, relation of, to philosophy, 
4f., 354 f . ; science of, 353 f . 

Theory of Knowledge. See Noetics. 

" Thing," the conception of, 95, 230 f., 
240 f., 246 f. 

Time, the category of, 249 f ., 252 f. 

Trendelenburg, his view of philosophy, 
20. 



Ueberweg, his definition of philo- 
sophy, 28. 



VOLKMANN VON VOLKMAE, hlS view of 

psychology, 89; and its method, 115. 

Weight, conception of, 265 f. 

Will, the freedom of, 296 f., 376 ; fac- 
tors in an act of, 298 ; the Absolute 
as, 376, 388. 

Wolff, his view of psychology, 87, 

Wundt, his view of philosophy, 26, 52, 
93; and its divisions, 167 f ; on na- 
ture of the soul, 282 f. 

Zellee, on philosophy among the 
Greeks, 12 ; on the problem of philo- 
sophy, 23. 



THE END. 



LEJl'3 1 



